GIFT   OF 


75  3  V 


LITERARY 


RECREATIONS  'AND  MISCELLANIES. 


JOHN    G.    WHITTIER, 

AUTHOR    OF    "MARGARET    SMITH'S    JOURNAL," 
"  OLD   PORTRAITS,"   ETC. 


"There  are  those  who  would  never  have  an  author  speak  of  things  of  which  others 
have  spoken  ;  and  if  he  does,  they  accuse  him  of  saying  nothing  new.  But,  if  the 
subjects  are  not  new,  the  disposing  of  them  may  be  ;  as  in  pjaying  at  tennis  both  play 
with  the  same  ball,  but  differently  ."  —  Blaiae  Pascal. 


BOSTON: 
TICKNOR     AND     FIELDS. 

M  DCCC  LIV. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1854,  by 

JOHN  G.  WHITTIER, 
In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


7? fa  9 


STEREOTYPED    AT    THE 
BOSTON     STEREOTYPE      FOUHDBY, 


PREFATORY  NOTE. 


MOST  of  the  pieces  which  make  up  this  volume 
were  originally  written  for  newspapers  with  which 
the  author  has  been  editorially  or  otherwise  con 
nected.  Penned  at  widely  different  periods,  in 
every  variety  of  mood  and  circumstance,  —  alike 
under  the  depressing  influences  of  illness  and  the 
stimulus  of  popular  excitement,  —  any  thing  like 
consecutive  arrangement  or  unity  has  been  out  of 
the  question.  Indeed,  their  selection  from  a  large 
amount  'of  similar  matter,  destined,  in  all  human 
probability,  to  that  capacious  wallet 

"  Which  Time  hath  ever  at  his  back, 
Wherein  he  puts  alms  to  oblivion," 

has  been  owing  quite  as  much  to  the  fact  that  they 

(3) 


4  PREFATORY  NOTE. 

lay  nearest  at  hand  as  to  any  estimate  of  their  rel 
ative  fitness  or  merit.  If  any  apology  is  needed 
for  the  light  and  playful  tone  of  some  of  them, 
it  must  be  found  in  the  fact  that  they  were  written 
at  times  when  any  more  serious  effort  would  have 
been  irksome  and  painful,  and  that  they  afforded 
the  necessary  episodical  relief  of  an  intense  and 
over-earnest  life.  There  are  other  papers  bearing 
directly  or  remotely  upon  questions  which  still 
divide  popular  feeling  and  opinion,  the  entire  omis 
sion  of  which  would  have  done  injustice  to  the 
author's  convictions  and  been  a  poor  compliment 
to  the  reader's  liberality. 

It  may  be  as  well  for  the  author  to  frankly 
own  that,  in  giving  these  hasty  and  ill-assorted 
papers  to  his  publishers,  he  has  had  some  fear 
that  he  was  making  an  unnecessary  experiment 
upon  the  patience  and  kindness  of  the  reading 
public,  to  which  he  is  already  a  good  deal  in 
debted.  Apart,  however,  from  a  little  solicitude 
as  respects  the  interests  of  his  good-natured  pub 
lishers,  he  resigns  his  book  to  its  fate  with  a 


PREFATORY   NOTE.  5 

comfortable  degree  of  unconcern,  satisfied  that  it 
will  at  least  find  favor  in  the  quarter  where  favor 
will  be  most  grateful  and  desirable  —  the  hearts 
of  his  personal  friends. 

AMESBURY,  fifth  month,  1854. 


THE 


CONTENTS. 


PAGK 

UTOPIAN  SCHEMES  AND  POLITICAL  THEORISTS,  .  .  9 
PECULIAR  INSTITUTIONS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS,  ...  20 
THOMAS  CARLYLE  ON  THE  SLAVE  QUESTION,  ...  34 

ENGLAND  UNDER  THE  LAST  STUART, 47 

THE  TWO  PROCESSIONS, 69 

EVANGELINE, 74 

A   CHAPTER  OP  HISTORY, 84 

FAME  AND  GLORY, 98 

FANATICISM, 107 

THE  BORDER  WAR  OF   1708, 113 

THE  GREAT  IPSWICH  FRIGHT, 126 

LORD  ASHLEY  AND  THE  THIEVES, 136 

MIRTH  AND  MEDICINE, ^.       .143 

POPE  NIGHT, "      ....    154 

THE  BETTER  LAND, 161 

THE  POETRY  OF  THE  NORTH, 165 

THE  BOY   CAPTIVES, 179 

(7) 


8  CONTENTS. 

THE  BLACK  MEN  IN  THE  DEVOLUTION  AND  WAR  OF   1812,  184 

MY  SUMMER   WITH  DR.  SINGLETARY, 196 

CHARMS  AND   FAIRY  FAITH, 257 

MAGICIANS  AND  WITCH  FOLK 273 

THE  AGENCY  OF  EVIL, 283 

THE  LITTLE  IRON  SOLDIER, 308 

THE  CITY  OF  A  DAY, 31G 

PATUCKET  FALLS, 326 

HAMLET  AMONG  THE  GRAVES, 335 

YANKEE  GYPSIES, 343 

THE  WORLD'S  END, 3€4 

SWEDENBORG,  .  374 

FIRST  DAY  IN  LOWELL, 381 

TAKING  COMFORT, 3M 

THE  BEAUTIFUL, 395 

THE  LIGHTING  UP,         ..'... 403 

THE  SCOTTISH  REFORMERS, 409 

THE  TRAINING,  425 


LITERARY 
RECREATIONS  AND  MISCELLANIES, 


UTOPIAN   SCHEMES   AND   POLITICAL 
THEORISTS. 

THERE  is  a  large  class  of  men,  not  in  Europe  alone, 
but  in  this  country  also,  whose  constitutional  conservatism 
inclines  them  to  regard  any  organic  change  in  the  gov 
ernment  of  a  state  or  the  social  condition  of  its  people 
with  suspicion  and  distrust.  They  admit,  perhaps,  the 
evils  of  the  old  state  of  things ;  but  they  hold  them  to  be 
inevitable,  the  alloy  necessarily  mingled  with  all  which 
pertains  to  fallible  humanity.  Themselves  generally 
enjoying  whatever  of  good  belongs  to  the  political  or 
social  system  in  which  their  lot  is  cast,  they  are  disposed 
to  look  with  philosophic  indifference  upon  the  evil  which 

(9) 


10  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

only  afflicts  their  neighbors.  They  wonder  why  people 
are  not  contented  with  their  allotments  ;  they  see  no  rea 
son  for  change ;  they  ask  for  quiet  and  peace  in  their 
day ;  being  quite  well  satisfied  with  that  social  condition 
which  an  old  poet  has  quaintly  described  :  — 

"  The  citizens  like  pounded  pikes ; 

The  lesser  feed  the  great; 
The  rich  for  food  seek  stomachs, 
And  the  poor  for  stomachs  meat." 

This  class  of  our  fellow-citizens  have  an  especial  dislike 
of  theorists,  reformers,  uneasy  spirits,  speculators  upon 
the  possibilities  of  the  world's  future,  constitution  builders, 
and  believers  in  progress.  They  are  satisfied ;  the  world 
at  least  goes  well  enough  with  them  ;  they  sit  as  comfort 
ably  in  it  as  Lafontaine's  rat  in  the  cheese;  and  why 
should  those  who  would  turn  it  upside  down  come  hither 
also  ?  Why  not  let  well  enough  alone  ?  Why  tinker 
creeds,  constitutions,  and  laws,  and  disturb  the  good  old- 
fashioned  order  of  things  in  church  and  state  ?  The  idea 
of  making  the  world  better  and  happier  is  to  them  an 
absurdity.  He  who  entertains  it  is  a  dreamer  and  a  vis 
ionary,  destitute  of  common  sense  and  practical  wisdom. 
His  project,  whatever  it  may  be,  is  at  once  pronounced  to 
be  impracticable  folly,  or,  as  they  are  pleased  to  term 
it,  Utopian. 


UTOPIAN    SCHEMES.  11 

The  romance  of  Sir  Thomas  More,  which  has  long 
afforded  to  the  conservatives  of  church  and  state  a  term 
of  contempt  applicable  to  all  reformatory  schemes  and 
innovations,  is  one  of  a  series  of  fabulous  writings,  in 
which  the  authors,  living  in  evil  times  and  unable  to 
actualize  their  plans  for  the  well  being  of  society,  have 
resorted  to  fiction  as  a  safe  means  of  conveying  forbidden 
truths  to  the  popular  mind.  Plato's  Timoeus,  the  first 
of  the  series,  was  written  after  the  death  of  Socrates  and 
the  enslavement  of  the  author's  country.  In  this  are 
described  the  institutions  of  the  Island  of  Atlantis  —  the 
writer's  ideal  of  a  perfect  commonwealth.  Xenophon,  in 
his  Cyropedia,  has  also  depicted  an  imaginary  political 
society  by  overlaying  with  fiction  historical  traditions. 
At  a  later  period  we  have  the  New  Atlantis  of  Lord 
Bacon  and  that  dream  of  the  City  of  the  Sun  with  which 
Campanella  solaced  himself  in  his  long  imprisonment. 

The  Utopia  of  More  is  perhaps  the  best  of  its  class. 
It  is  the  work  of  a  profound  thinker  —  the  suggestive 
speculations  and  theories  of  one  who  could 

"Forerun  his  age  and  race,  and  let 
His  feet  millenniums  hence  be  set 
In  midst  of  knowledge  dreamed  not  yet." 

Much  of  what  he  wrote  as  fiction  is  now  fact, — a  part 
of  the  framework  of  European  governments,  —  and  the 


12  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

political  truths  of  his  imaginary  state  are  now  practically 
recognized  in  our  own  democratic  system.  As  might  be 
expected,  in  view  of  the  times  in  which  the  author  wrote, 
and  the  exceedingly  limited  amount  of  materials  which  he 
found  ready  to  his  hands  for  the  construction  of  his  social 
and  political  edifice,  there  is  a  want  of  proportion  and 
symmetry  in  the  structure.  Many  of  his  theories  are  no 
doubt  impracticable  and  unsound.  But,  as  a  whole,  the 
work  is  an  admirable  one  —  striding  in  advance  of  the 
author's  age,  and  prefiguring  a  government  of  religious 
toleration  and  political  freedom.  The  following  extract 
from  it  was  doubtless  regarded  in  his  day  as  something 
worse  than  folly  or  the  dream  of  a  visionary  enthusiast :  — 

"  He  judged  it  wrong  to  lay  down  any  thing  rashly,  and 
seemed  to  doubt  whether  these  different  forms  of  religion 
might  not  all  come  from  God,  who  might  inspire  men  in  a 
different  manner,  and  be  pleased  with  the  variety.  Pie 
therefore  thought  it  to  be  indecent  and  foolish  for  any  man 
to  threaten  and  terrify  another,  to  make  him  believe  what 
did  not  strike  him  as  true." 

Passing  by  the  Telemachus  of  Fenelon,  we  come  to 
the  political  romance  of  Harrington,  written  in  the  time  of 
Cromwell.  Oceana  is  the  name  by  which  the  author 
represents  England ;  and  the  republican  plan  of  govern 
ment  which  he  describes  with  much  minuteness  is  such  as 
he  would  have  recommended  for  adoption  in  case  a  free 


UTOPIAN    SCHEMES.  13 

\ 

commonweal tli  had  been  established.  It  deals  somewhat 
severely  with  Cromwell's  usurpation ;  yet  the  author  did 
not  hesitate  to  dedicate  it  to  that  remarkable  man,  who, 
after  carefully  reading  it,  gave  it  back  to  his  daughter, 
Lady  Claypole,  with  the  remark,  full  of  characteristic 
bluntness,  that  "the  gentleman  need  not  think  to  cheat 
him  of  his  power  and  authority ;  for  what  he  had  won 
with  the  sword  he  would  never  suffer  himself  to  be  scrib 
bled  out  of." 

Notwithstanding  the  liberality  and  freedom  of  his  spec 
ulations  upon  government  and  religion  in  his  Utopia,  it 
must  be  confessed  that  Sir  Thomas  More,  in  afterlife,  fell 
into  the  very  practices  of  intolerance  and  bigotry  which 
he  condemned.  "When  in  the  possession  of  the  great  seal, 
under  that  scandal  of  kingship  Henry  VIII.,  he  gave  his 
countenance  to  the  persecution  of  heretics.  Bishop  Bur- 
net  says  of  him,  that  he  caused  a  gentleman  of  the  Temple 
to  be  whipped  and  put  to  the  rack  in  his  presence,  in 
order  to  compel  him  to  discover  those  who  favored  heret 
ical  opinions.  In  his  Utopia  he  assailed  the  profession 
of  the  law  with  merciless  satire ;  yet  the  satirist  himself 
finally  sat  upon  the  chancellor's  woolsack ;  and,  as  has 
been  well  remarked  by  Horace  Smith,  "  if,  from  this  ele 
vated  seat,  he  ever  cast  his  eyes  back  upon  his  past  life,,  he 
must  have  smiled  at  the  fond  conceit  which  could  imagine 
a  permanent  Utopia,  when  he  himself,  certainly  more 


14  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

learned,  honest,  and  conscientious  than  the  mass  of  men 
has  ever  been,  could  in  the  course  of  one  short  life  fall 
into  such  glaring  and  frightful  rebellion  against  his  own 
doctrines." 

Harrington,  on  the  other  hand,  as  became  the  friend  of 
Milton  and  Marvell,  held  fast,  through  good  and  evil 
report,  his  republican  faith.  He  published  his  work  after 
the  restoration,  and  defended  it  boldly  and  ably  from  the 
numerous  attacks  made  upon  it.  Regarded  as  too  danger 
ous  an  enthusiast  to  be  left  at  liberty,  he  was  imprisoned 
at  the  instance  of  Lord  Chancellor  Hyde,  first  in  the 
Tower,  and  afterwards  on  the  Island  of  St.  Nicholas, 
where  disease  and  imprudent  remedies  brought  on  a  par 
tial  derangement,  from  which  he  never  recovered. 

Bernardin  St.  Pierre,  whose  pathetic  tale  of  Paul  and 
Virginia  has  found  admirers  in  every  language  of  the  civil 
ized  world,  in  a  fragment,  entitled  Arcadia,  attempted 
to  depict  an  ideal  republic,  without  priest,  noble,  or  slave, 
where  all  are  so  religious  that  each  man  is  the  pontiff  of 
his  family,  where  each  man  is  prepared  to  defend  his 
country,  and  where  all  are  in  such  a  state  of  equality  that 
there  are  no  such  persons  as  servants.  The  plan  of  it 
was  suggested  by  his  friend  Rousseau  during  their  pleasant 
walking  excursions  about  the  environs  of  Paris,  in  which 
the  two  enthusiastic  philosophers,  baffled  by  the  evil 
passions  and  intractable  materials  of  human  nature  as 


UTOPIAN    SCHEMES.  15 

manifested  in  existing  society,  comforted  themselves  by 
appealing  from  the  actual  to  the  possible,  from  the  real  to 
the  imaginary.  Under  the  chestnut  trees  of  the  Bois  de 
Boulogne,  through  long  summer  days,  the  two  friends,  sick 
of  the  noisy  world  about  them,  yet  yearning  to  become  its 
benefactors,  —  gladly  escaping  from  it,  yet  busy  with 
schemes  for  its  regeneration  and  happiness,  —  at  once 
misanthropes  and  philanthropists,  —  amused  and  solaced 
themselves  by  imagining  a  perfect  and  simple  state  of 
society,  in  which  the  lessons  of  emulation  and  selfish  am 
bition  were  never  to  be  taught ;  where,  on  the  contrary, 
the  young  were  to  obey  their  parents,  and  to  prefer  father, 
mother,  brother,  sister,  wife,  and  friend  to  themselves. 
They  drew  beautiful  pictures  of  a  country  blessed  with 
peace,  industry,  and  love,  covered  with  no  disgusting 
monuments  of  violence,  and  pride,  and  luxury,  without 
columns,  triumphal  arches,  hospitals,  prisons,  or  gibbets; 
but  presenting  to  view  bridges  over  torrents,  wells  on  the 
arid  plain,  groves  of  fruit  trees,  and  houses  of  shelter  for 
the  traveller  in  desert  places,  attesting  every  where  the 
sentiment  of  humanity.  Religion  was  to  speak  to  all 
hearts  in  the  eternal  language  of  Nature.  Death  was  no 
longer  to  be  feareci ;  perspectives  of  holy  consolation  were 
to  open  through  the  cypress  shadows  of  the  tomb ;  to  live 
or  to  die  was  to  be  equally  an  object  of  desire. 

The  plan  of  the  Arcadia  of  St.  Pierre  is  simply  this : 


16  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

A  learned  young  Egyptian,  educated  at  Thebes  by  the 
priests  of  Osiris,  desirous  of  benefiting  humanity,  under 
takes  a  voyage  to  Gaul  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  thither 
the  arts  and  religion  of  Egypt.  He  is  shipwrecked  on 
his  return  in  the  Gulf  of  Messina,  and  lands  upon  the 
coast,  where  he  is  entertained  by  an  Arcadian,  to  whom 
he  relates  his  adventures,  and  from  whom  he  receives  in 
turn  an  account  of  the  simple  happiness  and  peace  of 
Arcadia,  the  virtues  and  felicity  of  whose  inhabitants  are 
beautifully  exemplified  in  the  lives  and  conversation  of 
the  shepherd  and  his  daughter.  This  pleasant  little  prose 
poem  closes  somewhat  abruptly.  Although  inferior  in 
artistic  skill  to  Paul  and  Virginia  or  the  Indian  Cot 
tage,  there  is  not  a  little  to  admire  in  the  simple  beauty 
of  its  pastoral  descriptions.  The  closing  paragraph  re 
minds  one  of  Bunyan's  upper  chamber,  where  the  weary 
pilgrim's  windows  opened  to  the  sunrising  and  the  singing 
of  birds:  — 

"  Tyrteus  conducted  his  guests  to  an  adjoining  chamber. 
It  had  a  window,  shut  by  a  curtain  of  rushes,  through  the 
crevices  of  which  the  islands  of  the  Alpheus  might  be 
seen  in  the  light  of  the  moon.  There  were  in  this  cham 
ber  two  excellent  beds,  with  coverlets  of  warm  and  light 
wool. 

"  Now,  as  soon  as  Amasis  was  left  alone  with  Cephas, 
he  spoke  with  joy  of  the  delight  and  tranquillity  of  the 


UTOPIAN    SCHEMES.  17 

valley,  of  the  goodness  of  the  shepherd,  and  of  the  grace 
of  his  young  daughter,  to  whom  he  had  seen  none  worthy 
to  be  compared,  and  of  the  pleasure  which  he  promised 
himself  the  next  day,  at  the  festival  on  Mount  Lyceum, 
of  beholding  a  whole  people  as  happy  as  this  sequestered 
family.  Converse  so  delightful  might  have  charmed 
away  the  night  without  the  aid  of  sleep,  had  they  not  been 
invited  to  repose  by  the  mild  light  of  the  moon  shining 
through  the  window,  the  murmuring  wind  in  the  leaves 
of  the  poplars,  and  the  distant  noise  of  the  Achelous  which 
falls  roaring  from  the  summit  of  Mount  Lyceum." 

The  young  patrician  wits  of  Athens  doubtless  laughed 
over  Plato's  ideal  republic.  Campanella's  City  of  the 
Sun  was  looked  upon,  no  doubt,  as  the  distempered  vision 
of  a  crazy  state  prisoner.  Bacon's  college,  in  his  New 
Atlantis,  moved  the  risibles  of  fat-witted  Oxford.  More's 
Utopia,  as  we  know,  gave  to  our  language  a  new  word, 
expressive  of  the  vagaries  and  dreams  of  fanatics  and 
lunatics.  The  merciless  wits,  clerical  and  profane,  of  the 
Court  of  Charles  II.  regarded  Harrington's  romance  as 
a  perfect  godsend  to  their  vocation  of  ridicule.  The  gay 
dames  and  carpet  knights  of  Versailles  made  themselves 
merry  with  the  prose  pastoral  of  St.  Pierre ;  and  the  poor 
old  enthusiast  went  down  to  his  grave  without  finding  an 
auditory  for  his  lectures  upon  natural  society. 

The  world  had  its  laugh  over  these  romances.     When. 


18  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

unable  to  refute  their  theories,  it  could  sneer  at  the  authors, 
and  answer  them  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  generation  in 
which  they  lived,  at  least  by  a  general  charge  of  lunacy. 
Some  of  their  notions  were  no  doubt  as  absurd  as  those  of 
the  astronomer  in  Rasselas,  who  tells  Imlac  that  he  has 
for  five  years  possessed  the  regulation  of  the  weather,  and 
has  got  the  secret  of  making  to  the  different  nations  an 
equal  and  impartial  dividend  of  rain  and  sunshine.  But 
truth,  even  when  ushered  into  the  world  through  the 
medium  of  a  dull  romance  and  in  connection  with,  a  vast 
progeny  of  errors,  however  ridiculed  and  despised  at  first, 
never  fails  in  the  end  of  finding  a  lodging-place  in  the 
popular  mind.  The  speculations  of  the  political  theorists 
we  have  noticed  have  not  all  proved  to  be  of 


such  stuff 


As  dreams  are  made  of,  and  their  little  life 
Rounded  with  sleep." 

They  have  entered  into  and  become  parts  of  the  social 
and  political  fabrics  of  Europe  and  America.  The  proph 
ecies  of  imagination  have  been  fulfilled;  the  dreams  of 
romance  have  become  familiar  realities. 

What  is  the  moral  suggested  by  this  record  ?  Is  it  not 
that  we  should  look  with  charity  and  tolerance  upon  the 
schemes  and  speculations  of  the  political  and  social  theo 
rists  of  our  day ;  that,  if  unprepared  to  venture  upon  new 


UTOPIAN    SCHEMES.  19 

experiments  and  radical  changes,  we  should  at  least  con 
sider  that  what  was  folly  to  our  ancestors  is  our  wisdom, 
and  that  another  generation  may  successfully  put  in  prac 
tice  the  very  theories  which  now  seem  to  us  absurd  and 
impossible  ?  Many  of  the  evils  of  society  have  been  meas 
urably  removed  or  ameliorated ;  yet  now,  as  in  the  days 
of  the  apostle,  "  the  creation  groaneth  and  travaileth  with 
pain  ;  "  and  although  quackery  and  empiricism  abound,  is 
it  not  possible  that  a  proper  application  of  some  of  the 
remedies  proposed  might  ameliorate  the  general  suffering  ? 
Rejecting,  as  we  must,  whatever  is  inconsistent  with  or 
hostile  to  the  doctrines  of  Christianity,  on  which  alone 
rests  our  hope  for  humanity,  it  becomes  us  to  look  kindly 
upon  all  attempts  to  apply  those  doctrines  to  the  details 
of  human  life,  to  the  social,  political,  and  industrial  rela 
tions  of  the  race.  If  it  is  not  permitted  us  to  believe  all 
things,  we  can  at  least  hope  them.  Despair  is  infidelity 
and  death.  Temporally  and  spiritually,  the  declaration 
of  inspiration  holds  good  —  "  We  are  saved  by  hope." 


PECULIAR    INSTITUTIONS    OF    MASSACHU 
SETTS. 

BERNARDIN  ST.  PIERRE,  in  his  Wishes  of  a  Solitary, 
asks  for  his  country  neither  wealth,  nor  military  glory, 
nor  magnificent  palaces  and  monuments,  nor  splendor  of 
court  nobility,  nor  clerical  pomp.  "Rather,"  he  says, 
"  O  France,  may  no  beggar  tread  thy  plains,  no  sick  or 
suffering  man  ask  in  vain  for  relief ;  in  all  thy  hamlets 
may  every  young  woman  find  a  lover  and  every  lover  a 
true  wife ;  may  the  young  be  trained  arightly  and  guarded 
from  evil;  may  the  old  close  their  days  in  the  tranquil 
hope  of  those  who  love  God  and  their  fellow-men." 

We  are  reminded  of  the  amiable  wish  of  the  French 
essayist  —  a  wish  even  yet  very  far  from  realization,  we 
fear,  in  the  empire  of  Napoleon  II.  —  by  the  perusal  of 
two  documents  recently  submitted  to  the  legislature  of 
the  State  of  Massachusetts.  They  indicate,  in  our  view, 
the  real  glory  of  a  state,  and  foreshadow  the  coming  of 
that  time  when  Milton's  definition  of  a  true  common 
wealth  shall  be  no  longer  a  prophecy,  but  the  description 

(20) 


PECULIAR   INSTITUTIONS    OF   MASSACHUSETTS.        21 

of  an  existing  fact  —  "a  huge  Christian  personage,  a 
mighty  growth  and  stature  of  an  honest,  man,  moved  by 
the  purpose  of  a  love  of  God  and  of  mankind." 

Some  years  ago,  the  legislature  of  Massachusetts,  at 
the  suggestion  of  several  benevolent  gentlemen  whose 
attention  had  been  turned  to  the  subject,  appointed  a 
commission  to  inquire  into  the  condition  of  the  idiots  of 
the  commonwealth,  to  ascertain  their  numbers,  and 
whether  any  thing  could  be  done  in  their  behalf. 

The  commissioners  were  Dr.  Samuel  G.  Howe,  so  well 
and  honorably  known  for  his  long  and  arduous  labors  in 
behalf  of  the  blind,  Judge  Byington,  and  Dr.  Gilman  Kim- 
ball.  The  burden  of  the  labor  fell  upon  the  chairman, 
who  entered  upon  it  with  the  enthusiasm,  perseverance, 
and  practical  adaptation  of  means  to  ends  which  have 
made  him  so  efficient  in  his  varied  schemes  of  benevo 
lence.  On  the  26th  of  the  second  month,  1848,  a  full  re 
port  of  the  results  of  this  labor  was  made  to  the  governor, 
accompanied  by  statistical  tables  and  minute  details.  One 
hundred  towns  had  been  visited  by  the  chairman  or  his 
reliable  agent,  in  which  Jive  hundred  and  seventy-Jive  per 
sons  in  a  state  of  idiocy  were  discovered.  These  were 
examined  carefully  in  respect  to  their  physical  as  well  as 
mental  condition,  no  inquiry  being  omitted  which  was 
calculated  to  throw  light  upon  the  remote  or  immediate 
causes  of  this  mournful  imperfection  in  the  creation  of 


22  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

God.  The  proximate  causes  Dr.  Howe  mentions  are  to  be 
found  in  the  state  of  the  bodily  organization,  deranged 
and  disproportioned  by  some  violation  of  natural  law  on 
the  part  of  the  parents  or  remoter  ancestors  of  the  suffer- 
ers.  Out  of  420  cases  of  idiocy,  he  had  obtained  informa 
tion  respecting  the  condition  of  the  progenitors  of  359  ; 
and  in  all  but  four  of  these  cases  he  found  that  one  or  the 
other,  or  both,  of  their  immediate  progenitors  had  in  some 
way  departed  widely  from  the  condition  of  health :  they 
were  scrofulous,  or  predisposed  to  affections  of  the  brain, 
and  insanity,  or  had  intermarried  with  blood  relations,  or 
had  been  intemperate,  or  guilty  of  sensual  excesses. 

Of  the  575  cases,  420  were  those  of  idiocy  from  birth, 
and  155  of  idiocy  afterwards.  Of  the  born  idiots,  187 
were  under  twenty -five  years  of  age,  and  all  but  13  seemed 
capable  of  improvement.  Of  those  above  twenty-five 
years  of  age,  73  appeared  incapable  of  improvement  in 
their  mental  condition,  being  helpless  as  children  at  seven 
years'  of  age ;  43  out  of  the  420  seemed  as  helpless  as 
children  at  two  years  of  age  ;  33  were  in  the  condition  of 
mere  infants ;  and  220  were  supported  at  the  public  charge 
in  almshouses.  A  large  proportion  of  them  were  found  to 
be  given  over  to  filthy  and  loathsome  habits,  gluttony,  and 
lust,  and  constantly  sinking  lower  towards  the  condition 
of  absolute  brutishness. 

Those  in  private  houses  were  found,  if  possible,  in  a 


PECULIAR   INSTITUTIONS    OF   MASSACHUSETTS.       23 

still  more  deplorable  state.  Their  parents  were  generally 
poor,  feeble  in  mind  and  body,  and  often  of  very  intemper 
ate  habits.  Many  of  them  seemed  scarcely  able  to  take 
care  of  themselves,  and  totally  unfit  for  the  training  of 
ordinary  children.  It  was  the  blind  leading  the  blind, 
imbecility  teaching  imbecility.  Some  instances  of  the 
experiments  of  parental  ignorance  upon  idiotic  offspring, 
which  fell  under  the  observation  of  Dr.  Howe,  are  related 
in  his  report.  Idiotic  children  were  found  with  their 
heads  covered  over  with  cold  poultices  of  oak  bark,  which 
the  foolish  parents  supposed  would  tan  the  brain  and 
harden  it  as  the  tanner  does  his  ox  hides,  and  so  make  it 
capable  of  retaining  impressions  and  remembering  lessons. 
In  other  cases,  finding  that  the  child  could  not  be  made  to 
comprehend  any  thing,  the  sagacious  heads  of  the  house 
hold,  on  the  supposition  that  its  brain  was  too  hard,  tor 
tured  it  with  hot  poultices  of  bread  and  milk  to  soften  it. 
Others  plastered  over  their  children's  heads  with  tar. 
Some  administered  strong  doses  of  mercury,  to  "  solder  up 
the  openings  "  in  the  head  and  make  it  tight  and  strong. 
Others  encouraged  the  savage  gluttony  of  their  children, 
stimulating  their  unnatural  and  bestial  appetites,  on  the 
ground  that  "  the  poor  creatures  had  nothing  else  to  enjoy 
but  their  food,  and  they  should  have  enough  of  that !  " 

In    consequence  of  this  report,  the  legislature,  in  the 
spring  of  1848,  made  an  annual  appropriation  of  twenty- 


24  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

five  hundred  dollars,  for  three  years,  for  the  purpose  of 
training  and  teaching  ten  idiot  children,  to  be  selected  by 
the  governor  and  council.  The  trustees  of  the  Asylum  for 
the  Blind,  under  the  charge  of  Dr.  Howe,  made  arrange 
ments  for  receiving  these  pupils.  The  school  was  opened 
in  the  autumn  of  1848 ;  and  its  first  annual  report,  ad 
dressed  to  the  governor  and  printed  by  order  of  the  senate, 
is  now  before  us. 

Of  the  ten  pupils,  it  appears  that  not  one  had  the  usual 
command  of  muscular  motion  —  the  languid  body  obeyed 
not  the  service  of  the  imbecile  will.  Some  could  walk 
and  use  their  limbs  and  hands  in  simple  motions ;  others 
could  only  make  slight  use  of  their  muscles  ;  and  two  were 
without  any  power  of  locomotion. 

One  of  these  last,  a  boy  six  years  of  age,  who  had  been 
stupefied  on  the  day  of  his  birth  by  the  application  of  hot 
rum  to  his  head,  could  scarcely  see  or  notice  objects,  and 
was  almost  destitute  of  the  sense  of  touch.  He  could 
neither  stand  nor  sit  upright,  nor  even  creep,  but  would 
lie  on  the  floor  in  whatever  position  he  was  placed.  He 
could  not  feed  himself  nor  chew  solid  food,  and  had  no 
more  sense  of  decency  than  an  infant.  His  intellect  was 
a  blank ;  he  had  no  knowledge,  no  desires,  no  affections. 
A  more  hopeless  object  for  experiment  could  scarcely 
have  been  selected. 

A  year  of  patient  endeavor  has  nevertheless  wrought  a 


PECULIAR   INSTITUTIONS    OF    MASSACHUSETTS.       25 

wonderful  change  in  the  condition  of  this  miserable  being. 
Cold  bathing,  rubbing  of  the  limbs,  exercise  of  the  muscles, 
exposure  to  the  air,  and  other  appliances  have  enabled 
him  to  stand  upright,  to  sit  at  table  and  feed  himself,  and 
chew  his  food,  and  to  walk  about  with  slight  assistance. 
His  habits  are  no  longer  those  of  a  brute ;  he  observes 
decency ;  his  eye  is  brighter  ;  his  cheeks  glow  with  health  ; 
his  countenance  is  more  expressive  of  thought.  He  has 
learned  many  words,  and  constructs  simple  sentences; 
his  affections  begin  to  develop ;  and  there  is  every  pros 
pect  that  he  will  be  so  far  renovated  as  to  be  able  to 
provide  for  himself  in  manhood. 

In  the  case  of  another  boy,  aged  twelve  years,  the  im 
provement  has  been  equally  remarkable.  The  gentleman 
who  first  called  attention  to  him,  in  a  recent  note  to  Dr. 
Howe,  published  in  the  report,  thus  speaks  of  his  present 
condition :  "  When  I  remember  his  former  wild  and 
almost  frantic  demeanor  when  approached  by  any  one, 
and  the  apparent  impossibility  of  communicating  with  him, 
and  now  see  him  standing  in  his  class,  playing  with  his 
fellows,  and  willingly  and  familiarly  approaching  me, 
examining  what  I  gave  him,  — and  when  I  see  him  already 
selecting  articles  named  by  his  teacher,  and  even  cor 
rectly  pronouncing  words  printed  on  cards,  —  improvement 
does  not  convey  the  idea  presented  to  my  mind ;  it  is 
creation;  it  is  making  him  anew." 


26  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

All  the  pupils  have  more  or  less  advanced.  Their 
health  and  habits  have  improved ;  and  there  is  no  reason 
to  doubt  that  the  experiment,  at  the  close  of  its  three  years, 
will  be  found  to  have  been  quite  as  successful  as  its  most 
sanguine  projectors  could  have  anticipated.  Dr.  Howe 
has  been  ably  seconded  by  an  accomplished  teacher, 
James  B.  Richards,  who  has  devoted  his  whole  time  to 
the  pupils.  Of  the  nature  and  magnitude  of  their  task, 
an  idea  may  be  formed  only  by  considering  the  utter  list- 
lessness  of  idiocy,  the  incapability  of  the  poor  pupil  to 
fix  his  attention  upon  any  thing,  and  his  general  want  of 
susceptibility  to  impressions.  All  his  senses  are  dulled 
and  perverted.  Touch,  hearing,  sight,  smell  are  all  more 
or  less  defective.  His  gluttony  is  unaccompanied  with 
the  gratification  of  taste  —  the  most  savory  viands  and  the 
offal  which  he  shares  with  the  pigs  equally  satisfy  him. 
His  mental  state  is  still  worse  than  his  physical.  Thought 
is  painful  and  irksome  to  him.  His  teacher  can  only 
engage  his  attention  by  strenuous  efforts,  loud,  earnest 
tones,  gesticulations  and  signs,  and  a  constant  presenta 
tion  of  some  visible  object  of  bright  color  and  striking 
form.  The  eye  wanders,  and  the  spark  of  consciousness 
and  intelligence  which  has  been  fanned  into  momentary 
brightness  darkens  at  the  slightest  relaxation  of  the 
teacher's  exertions.  The  names  of  objects  presented  to 
him  must  sometimes  be  repeated  hundreds  of  times  before 


PECULIAR    INSTITUTIONS    OF    MASSACHUSETTS.        27 

he  can  learn  them.  Yet  the  patience  and  enthusiasm  of 
the  teacher  are  rewarded  by  a  progress,  slow  and  unequal, 
but  still  marked  and  manifest.  Step  by  step,  often  com 
pelled  to  turn  back  and  go  over  the  inch  of  ground  he 
had  gained,  the  idiot  is  still  creeping  forward ;  and  by 
almost  imperceptible  degrees  his  sick,  cramped,  and  pris 
oned  spirit  casts  off  the  burden  of  its  body  of  death, 
breath  as  from  the  Almighty  is  breathed  into  him,  and 
he  becomes  a  living  soul. 

After  the  senses  of  the  idiot  are  trained  to  take  note 
of  their  appropriate  objects,  the  various  perceptive  facul 
ties  are  next  to  be  exercised.  The  greatest  possible 
number  of  facts  are  to  be  gathered  up  through  the 
medium  of  these  faculties  into  the  storehouse  of  memory, 
from  whence  eventually  the  higher  faculties  of  mind  may 
draw  the  material  of  general  ideas.  It  has  been  found 
difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  teach  the  idiot  to  read  by 
the  letters  first,  as  in  the  ordinary  method ;  but  while  the 
varied  powers  of  the  three  letters,  h,  a,  £,  could  not  be 
understood  by  him,  he  could  be  made  to  comprehend 
the  complex  sign  of  the  word  hat,  made  by  uniting  the 
three. 

The  moral  nature  of  the  idiot  needs  training  and  de 
velopment  as  well  as  his  physical  and  mental.  All  that 
can  be  said  of  him  is,  that  he  has  the  latent  capacity  for 
moral  development  and  culture.  Uninstructed  and  left 


28  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

to  himself,  he  has  no  ideas  of  regulated  appetites  and  pro 
pensities,  of  decency  and  delicacy  of  affection  and  social 
relations.  The  germs  of  these  ideas,  which  constitute  the 
glory  and  beauty  of  humanity,  undoubtedly  exist  in  him ; 
but  there  can  be  no  growth  without  patient  and  perse 
vering  culture.  Where  this  is  afforded,  to  use  the  lan 
guage  of  the  report,  "  the  idiot  may  learn  what  love  is, 
though  he  may  not  know  the  word  which  expresses  it ;  he 
may  feel  kindly  affections  while  unable  to  understand  the 
simplest  virtuous  principle ;  and  he  may  begin  to  live  ac 
ceptably  to  God  before  he  has  learned  the  name  by  which 
men  call  him." 

In  the  facts  and  statistics  presented  in  the  report,  light 
is  shed  upon  some  of  the  dark  pages  of  God's  providence, 
and  it  is  seen  that  the  suffering  and  shame  of  idiocy  are 
the  result  of  sin,  of  a  violation  of  the  merciful  laws  of 
God  and  of  the  harmonies  of  His  benign  order.  The 
penalties  which  are  ordained  for  the  violators  of  natural 
laws  are  inexorable  and  certain.  For  the  transgressor 
of  the  laws  of  life  there  is,  as  in  the  case  of  Esau,  "  no 
place  for  repentance,  though  he  seek  it  earnestly  and 
with  tears."  The  curse  cleaves  to  him  and  his  children. 
In  this  view,  how  important  becomes  the  subject  of  the 
hereditary  transmission  of  moral  and  physical  disease  and 
debility !  and  how  necessary  it  is  that  there  should  be  a 
clearer  understanding  of,  and  a  willing  obedience,  at  any 


PECULIAR    INSTITUTIONS    OF    MASSACHUSETTS.        29 

cost,  to,  the  eternal  law  which  makes  the  parent  the  bless 
ing  or  the  curse  of  the  child,  giving  strength  and  beauty, 
and  the  capacity  to  know  and  do  the  will  of  God,  or  be 
queathing  loathsomeness,  deformity,  and  animal  appetite, 
incapable  of  the  restraints  of  the  moral  faculties !  Even 
if  the  labors  of  Dr.  Howe  and  his  benevolent  associates  do 
not  materially  lessen  the  amount  of  present  actual  evil 
and  suffering  in  this  respect,  they  will  not  be  put  forth  in 
vain  if  they  have  the  effect  of  calling  public  attention  to 
the  great  laws  of  our  being,  the  violation  of  which  has 
made  this  goodly  earth  a  vast  lazar  house  of  pain  and 
sorrow. 

The  late  annual  message  of  the  governor  of  Massachu 
setts  invites  our  attention  to  a  kindred  institution  of  chari 
ty.  The  chief  magistrate  congratulates  the  legislature,  in 
language  creditable  to  his  mind  and  heart,  on  the  opening 
of  the  Reform  School  for  Juvenile  Criminals,  established 
by  an  act  of  a  previous  legislature.  The  act  provides 
that,  when  any  boy  under  sixteen  years  of  age  shall  be 
convicted  of  crime  punishable  by  imprisonment  other 
than  such  an  offence  as  is  punished  by  imprisonment  for 
life,  he  may  be,  at  the  discretion  of  the  court  or  justice, 
sent  to  the  State  Reform  School,  or  sentenced  to  such  im 
prisonment  as  the  law  now  provides  for  his  offence.  The 
school  is  placed  under  the  care  of  trustees,  who  may  either 
refuse  to  receive  a  boy  thus  sent  there,  or,  after  he  has 


30  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

been  received,  for  reasons  set  forth  in  the  act,  may  order 
him  to  be  committed  to  prison  under  the  previous  penal 
law  of  the  state.  They  are  also  authorized  to  apprentice 
the  boys,  at  their  discretion,  to  inhabitants  of  the  common 
wealth.  And  whenever  any  boy  shall  be  discharged, 
either  as  reformed  or  as  having  reached  the  age  of 
twenty-one  years,  his  discharge  is  a  full  release  from  his 
sentence. 

It  is  made  the  duty  of  the  trustees  to  cause  the  boys  to 
be  instructed  in  piety  and  morality,  and  in  branches  of 
useful  knowledge,  in  some  regular  course  of  labor,  me 
chanical,  agricultural,  or  horticultural,  and  such  other 
trades  and  arts  as  may  be  best  adapted  to  secure  the 
amendment,  reformation,  and  future  benefit  of  the  boys. 

The  class  of  offenders  for  whom  this  act  provides  are 
generally  the  offspring  of  parents  depraved  by  crime  or 
suffering  from  poverty  and  want,  —  the  victims  often  of 
circumstances  of  evil  which  almost  constitute  a  necessity, — 
issuing  from  homes  polluted  and  miserable,  from  the  sight 
and  hearing  of  loathsome  impurities  and  hideous  discords, 
to  avenge  upon  society  the  ignorance,  and  destitution,  and 
neglect  with  which  it  is  too  often  justly  chargeable.  In 
1846  three  hundred  of  these  youthful  violators  of  law 
were  sentenced  to  jails  and  other  places  of  punishment  in 
Massachusetts,  where  they  incurred  the  fearful  liability 
of  being  still  more  thoroughly  corrupted  by  contact  with 


PECULIAR   INSTITUTIONS    OF   MASSACHUSETTS.        31 

older  criminals,  familiar  with  atrocity,  and  rolling  their 
loathsome  vices  "as  a  sweet  morsel  under  the  tongue." 
In  view  of  this  state  of  things  the  Reform  School  has 
been  established,  twenty-two  thousand  dollars  having  been 
contributed  to  the  state  for  that  purpose  by  an  unknown 
benefactor  of  his  race.  The  school  is  located  in  "West- 
boro',  on  a  fine  farm  of  two  hundred  acres.  The 
buildings  are  in  the  form  of  a  square,  with  a  court  in  the 
centre,  three  stories  in  front,  with  wings.  They  are  con 
structed  with  a  good  degree  of  architectural  taste,  and 
their  site  is  happily  chosen  — a  gentle  eminence,  overlook 
ing  one  of  the  loveliest  of  the  small  lakes  which  form  a 
pleasing  feature  in  New  England  scenery.  From  this 
place  the  atmosphere  and  associations  of  the  prison  are 
excluded.  The  discipline  is  strict,  as  a  matter  of  course ; 
but  it  is  that  of  a  well-regulated  home  or  school  room  — 
order,  neatness,  and  harmony  within  doors ;  and  without, 
the  beautiful  sights,  and  sounds,  and  healthful  influences  of 
Nature.  One  would  almost  suppose  that  the  poetical 
dream  of  Coleridge,  in  his  tragedy  of  Remorse,  had  found 
its  realization  in  the  "Westboro'  School,  and  that,  weary 
of  the  hopelessness  and  cruelty  of  the  old  penal  system, 
our  legislators  had  imbodied  in  their  statutes  the  idea 
of  the  poet :  — 

"  With  other  ministrations  thou,  0  Nature, 
Healest  thy  wandering  and  distempered  child  : 


32  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

Thou  pourest  on  him  thy  soft  influences, 

Thy  sunny  hues,  fair  forms,  and  breathing  sweets, 

Thy  melodies  of  woods,  and  winds,  and  waters, 

Till  he  relent,  and  can  no  more  endure 

To  be  a  jarring  and  a  dissonant  thing 

Amidst  this  general  dance  and  minstrelsy." 

Thus  it  is  that  the  Christian  idea  of  reformation,  rather 
than  revenge,  is  slowly  but  surely  incorporating  itself  in 
our  statute  books.  "We  have  only  to  look  back  but  a 
single  century  to  be  able  to  appreciate  the  immense  gain 
for  humanity  in  the  treatment  of  criminals  which  has 
been  secured  in  that  space  of  time.  Then  the  use  of 
torture  was  common  throughout  Europe.  Inability  to 
comprehend  and  believe  certain  religious  dogmas  was  a 
crime  to  be  expiated  by  death,  or  confiscation  of  estate,  or 
lingering  imprisonment.  Petty  offences  against  property 
furnished  subjects  for  the  hangman.  The  stocks  and  the 
whipping  post  stood  by  the  side  of  the  meeting  house. 
Tongues  were  bored  with  redhot  irons  and  ears  shorn 
off.  The  jails  were  loathsome  dungeons,  swarming  with 
vermin,  unventilated,  unwarmed.  A  century  and  a  half 
ago  the  populace  of  Massachusetts  were  convulsed  with 
grim  merriment  at  the  writhings  of  a  miserable  woman 
scourged  at  the  cart  tail  or  strangling  in  the  ducking 
stool ;  crowds  hastened  to  enjoy  the  spectacle  of  an  old 
man  enduring  the  unutterable  torment  of  the  peine  forte 


PECULIAR   INSTITUTIONS    OF   MASSACHUSETTS.       33 

et  dure  —  pressed  slowly  to  death  under  planks  —  for 
refusing  to  plead  to  an  indictment  for  witchcraft.  What 
a  change  from  all  this  to  the  opening  of  the  State  Reform 
School,  to  the  humane  regulations  of  prisons  and  peniten 
tiaries,  to  keeneyed  benevolence  watching  over  the  ad 
ministration  of  justice,  which,  in  securing  society  from 
lawless  aggression,  is  not  suffered  to  overlook  the  true 
interest  and  reformation  of  the  criminal,  nor  to  forget  that 
the  magistrate,  in  the  words  of  the  apostle,  is  to  be  indeed 
"  the  minister  of  God  to  man  for  good  " ! 


THOMAS   CARLYLE   ON  THE   SLAVE 
QUESTION. 

A  LATE  number  of  Eraser's  Magazine  contains  an  ar 
ticle  bearing  the  unmistakable  impress  of  the  Anglo- 
German  peculiarities  of  Thomas  Carlyle,  entitled  "An 
Occasional  Discourse  on  the  Negro  Question,"  which 
would  be  interesting  as  a  literary  curiosity  were  it  not 
in  spirit  and  tendency  so  unspeakably  wicked  as  to  excite 
in  every  rightminded  reader  a  feeling  of  amazement  and 
disgust.  With  a  hard,  brutal  audacity,  a  blasphemous 
irreverence^  and  a  sneering  mockery  which  would  do 
honor  to  the  devil  of  Faust,  it  takes  issue  with  the  moral 
sense  of  mankind  and  the  precepts  of  Christianity.  Hav 
ing  ascertained  that  the  exports  of  sugar  and  spices  from 
the  West  Indies  have  diminished  since  emancipation,  — 
and  that  the  negroes,  having  worked,  as  they  believed, 
quite  long  enough  without  wages,  now  refuse  to  work  for 
the  planters  without  higher  pay  than  the  latter,  with  the 
thriftless  and  evil  habits  of  slavery  still  clinging  to  them, 
can  afford  to  give,  —  the  author  considers  himself  justi- 

(34) 


THOMAS    CARLYLE    OX    THE    SLAVE    QUESTION.        35 

fied  in  denouncing  negro  emancipation  as  one  of  the 
"  shams  "  which  he  was  specially  sent  into  this  world  to 
belabor.  Had  he  confined  himself  to  simple  abuse  and 
caricature  of  the  self-denying  and  Christian  abolitionists 
of  England  —  "  the  broad-brimmed  philanthropists  of 
Exeter  Hall" — there  would  have  been  small  occasion 
for  noticing  his  splenetic  and  discreditable  production. 
Doubtless  there  is  a  cant  of  philanthropy  —  the  alloy 
of  human  frailty  and  folly  —  in  the  most  righteous  re 
forms,  which  is  a  fair  subject  for  the  indignant  sarcasm 
of  a  professed  hater  of  shows  and  falsities.  Whatever  is 
hollow  and  hypocritical  in  politics,  morals,  or  religion 
comes  very  properly  within  the  scope  of  his  mockery,  and 
we  bid  him  God  speed  in  applying  his  satirical  lash 
upon  it.  Impostures  and  frauds  of  all  kinds  deserve 
nothing  better  than  detection  and  exposure.  Let  him 
blow  them  up  to  his  heart's  content,  as  Daniel  did  the 
image  of  Bell  and  the  Dragon. 

But  our  author,  in  this  matter  of  negro  slavery,  has 
undertaken  to  apply  his  explosive  pitch  and  rosin,  not  to 
the  affectation  of  humanity,  but  to  humanity  itself.  He 
mocks  at  pity,  scoffs  at  all  who  seek  to  lessen  the  amount 
of  pain  and  suffering,  sneers  at  and  denies  the  most  sacred 
rights,  and  mercilessly  consigns  an  entire  class  of  the 
children  of  his  heavenly  Father  to  the  doom  of  compul 
sory  servitude.  He  vituperates  the  poor  black  man  with 


36  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

a  coarse  brutality  which  would  do  credit  to  a  Mississippi 
slave  driver,  or  a  renegade  Yankee  dealer  in  human 
cattle  on  the  banks  of  the  Potomac.  His  rhetoric  has 
a  flavor  of  the  slave  pen  and  auction  block  —  vulgar, 
unmanly,  indecent  —  a  scandalous  outrage  upon  good 
taste  and  refined  feeling  —  which  at  once  degrades  the 
author  and  insults  his  readers. 

He  assumes  (for  he  is  one  of  those  sublimated  philoso 
phers  who  reject  the  Baconian  system  of  induction  and 
depend  upon  intuition  without  recourse  to  facts  and  fig 
ures)  that  the  emancipated  class  in  the  West  India  islands 
are  universally  idle,  improvident,  and  unfit  for  freedom ; 
that  God  created  them  to  be  the  servants  and  slaves  of 
their  "  born  lords,"  the  white  men,  and  designed  them  to 
grow  sugar,  coffee,  and  spices  for  their  masters,  instead 
of  raising  pumpkins  and  yams  for  themselves  ;  and  that, 
if  they  will  not  do  this,  "  the  beneficent  whip  "  should  be 
again  employed  to  compel  them.  He  adopts,  in  speaking 
of  the  black  class,  the  lowest  slang  of  vulgar  prejudice. 
"  Black  Quashee,"  sneers  the  gentlemanly  philosopher,  — 
"  black  Quashee,  if  he  will  not  help  in  bringing  out  the 
spices,  will  get  himself  made  a  slave  again,  (which  state 
will  be  a  little  less  ugly  than  his  present  one,)  and  with 
beneficent  whip,  since  other  methods  avail  not,  will  be 
compelled  to  work." 

It   is   difficult   to   treat    sentiments    so   atrocious    and 


THOMAS    CARLYLE    OX    THE    SLAVE    QUESTION.       37 

couched  in  such  offensive  language  with  any  thing  like 
respect.  Common  sense  and  unperverted  conscience  re 
volt  instinctively  against  them.  The  doctrine  they  incul 
cate  is  that  which  underlies  all  tyranny  and  wrong  of 
man  towards  man.  It  is  that  under  which  "  the  creation 
groaneth  and  travaileth  unto  this  day."  It  is  as  old  as 
Bin ;  the  perpetual  argument  of  strength  against  weak 
ness,  of  power  against  right ;  that  of  the  Greek  philoso 
pher,  that  the  barbarians,  being  of  an  inferior  race,  were 
born  to  be  slaves  to  the  Greeks ;  and  of  the  infidel 
Hobbes,  that  every  man,  being  by  nature  at  war  with 
every  other  man,  has  a  perpetual  right  to  reduce  him  to 
servitude  if  he  has  the  power.  It  is  the  cardinal  doctrine 
of  what  John  Quincy  Adams  has  very  properly  styled 
"  the  Satanic  school  of  philosophy  "  —  the  ethics  of  an 
old  Norse  sea  robber  or  an  Arab  plunderer  of  caravans. 
It  is  as  widely  removed  from  the  "  sweet  humanities  "  and 
unselfish  benevolence  of  Christianity  as  the  faith  and 
practice  of  the  East  India  Thug  or  the  New  Zealand 
cannibal. 

Our  author  does  not,  however,  take  us  altogether  by 
surprise.  He  has  before  given  no  uncertain  intimations 
of  the  point  towards  which  his  philosophy  was  tending. 
In  his  brilliant  essay  upon  Francia  of  Paraguay,  for  in 
stance,  we  find  him  entering  with  manifest  satisfaction 
and  admiration  into  the  details  of  his  hero's  tyranny.  In 


REQREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

his  Letters  and  Speeches  of  Oliver  Cromwell  —  in  half 
a  dozen  pages  of  savage  and  almost  diabolical  sarcasm 
directed  against  the  growing  humanity  of  the  age,  the 
"rose-pink  sentimentalisms,"  and  squeamishness  which 
shudders  at  the  sight  of  blood  and  infliction  of  pain  —  he 
prepares  the  way  for  a  justification  of  the  massacre  of 
Drogheda.  More  recently  he  has  intimated  that  the  ex 
termination  of  the  Celtic  race  is  the  best  way  of  settling 
the  Irish  question ;  and  that  the  enslavement  and  forcible 
transportation  of  her  poor,  to  labor  under  armed  task 
masters  in  the  colonies,  is  the  only  rightful  and  proper 
remedy  for  the  political  and  social  evils  of  England.  In 
the  Discourse  on  Negro  Slavery  we  see  this  devilish 
philosophy  in  full  bloom.  The  gods,  he  tells  us,  are  with 
the  strong.  Might  has  a  divine  right  to  rule  —  blessed 
are  the  crafty  of  brain  and  strong  of  hand  !  Weakness 
is  crime.  "  VCB  victis  !  "  as  Brennus  said  when  he  threw 
his  sword  into  the  scale — Woe  to  the  conquered!  The 
negro  is  weaker  in  intellect  than  his  "born  lord,"  the 
white  man,  and  has  no  right  to  choose  his  own  vocation. 
Let  the  latter  do  it  for  him,  and,  if  need  be,  return  to  the 
"  beneficent  whip."  "  On  the  side  of  the  oppressor  there 
is  power  ;  "  let  him  use  it  without  mercy,  and  hold  flesh 
and  blood  to  the  grindstone  with  unrelenting  rigor.  Hu 
manity  is  squeamishness  ;  pity  for  the  suffering,  mere 
"  rose-pink  sentimentalism,"  maudlin  and  unmanly.  The 


THOMAS    CARLYLE    OX    THE    SLAVE    QUESTION.       39 

gods  (the  old  Norse  gods  doubtless)  laugh  to  scorn  alike 
the  complaints  of  the  miserable,  and  the  weak  compas 
sions  and  "  philanthropisms  "  of  those  who  would  relieve 
them.  This  is  the  substance  of  Thomas  Carlyle's  advice ; 
this  is  the  matured  fruit  of  his  philosophic  husbandry  — 
the  grand  result  for  which  he  has  been  all  his  life  sound 
ing  "  unfathomable  abysses  "  or  beating  about  in  the  thin 
air  of  Transcendentalism.  Such  is  the  .substitute  which 
he  offers  us  for  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 

He  tells  us  that  the  blacks  have  no  right  to  use  the 
islands  of  the  West  Indies  for  growing  pumpkins  and 
garden  stuffs  for  their  own  use  and  behoof,  because,  but 
for  the  wisdom  and  skill  of  the  whites,  these  islands 
would  have  been  productive  only  of  "jungle,  savagery, 
and  swamp  malaria."  The  negro  alone  could  never  have 
improved  the  islands  or  civilized  himself ;  and  therefore 
their  and  his  "  born  lord,"  the  white  man,  has  a  right 
to  the  benefits  of  his  own  betterments  of  land  and  "  two- 
legged  cattle  " !  "  Black  Quashee  "  has  no  right  to  dis 
pose  of  himself  and  his  labor,  because  he  owes  his  partial 
civilization  to  others  !  And  pray  how  has  it  been  with 
the  white  race,  for  whom  our  philosopher  claims  the  di 
vine  prerogative  of  enslaving  ?  Some  twenty  and  odd 
centuries  ago,  a  pair  of  half-naked  savages,  daubed  with 
paint,  might  have  been  seen  roaming  among  the  hills  and 
woods  of  the  northern  part  of  the  British  island,  subsist- 


40  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

ing  on  acorns  and  the  flesh  of  wild  animals,  with  an 
occasional  relish  of  the  smoked  hams  and  pickled  fingers 
of  some  unfortunate  stranger  caught  on  the  wrong  side 
of  the  Tweed.  This  interesting  couple  reared,  as  they 
best  could,  a  family  of  children,  who,  in  turn,  became  the 
heads  of  families  ;  and  some  time  about  the  beginning 
of  the  present  century  one  of  their  descendants  in  the 
borough  of  Ecclefechan  rejoiced  over  the  birth  of  a  man 
child  now  somewhat  famous  as  "  Thomas  Carlyle,  a  maker 
of  books."  Does  it  become  such  a  one  to  rave  against  the 
West  India  negro's  incapacity  for  self-civilization  ?  Un 
aided  by  the  arts,  sciences,  and  refinements  of  the  Ro 
mans,  he  might  have  been,  at  this  very  day,  squatted  on 
his  naked  haunches  in  the  woods  of  Ecclefechan,  painting 
his  weather-hardened  epidermis  in  the  sun  like  his  Pict 
ancestors.  Where,  in  fact,  can  we  look  for  unaided  self- 
improvement  and  spontaneous  internal  development,  to 
any  considerable  extent,  on  the  part  of  any  nation  or 
people  ?  From  people  to  people  the  original  God-given 
impulse  towards  civilization  and  perfection  has  been 
transmitted,  as  from  Egypt  to  Greece,  and  thence  to  the 
Roman  world. 

But  the  blacks,  we  are  told,  are  indolent  and  insensible 
to  the  duty  of  raising  sugar  and  coffee  and  spice  for  the 
whites,  being  mainly  careful  to  provide  for  their  own 
household  and  till  their  own  gardens  for  domestic  com- 


THOMAS    CARLYLE    ON    THE    SLAVE    QUESTION.       41 

forts  and  necessaries.  The  exports  have  fallen  off  some 
what.  And  what  does  this  prove  ?  Only  that  the  negro  is 
now  a  consumer  of  products,  of  which,  under  the  rule  of  the 
whip,  he  was  a  producer  merely.  As  to  indolence,  under 
the  proper  stimulus  of  fair  wages  we  have  reason  to  be 
lieve  that  the  charge  is  not  sustained.  If  unthrifty  habits 
and  lack  of  prudence  on  the  pa^rt  of  the  owners  of  estates, 
combined  with  the  repeal  of  duties  on  foreign  sugars  by 
the  British  government,  have  placed  it  out  of  their  power 
to  pay  just  and  reasonable  wages  for  labor,  who  can 
blame  the  blacks  if  they  prefer  to  cultivate  their  own 
garden  plots  rather  than  raise  sugar  and  spice  for  their 
late  masters  upon  terms  little  better  than  those  of  their 
old  condition,  the  "  beneficent  whip  "  always  excepted  ? 
The  despatches  of  the  colonial  governors  agree  in  admit 
ting  that  the  blacks  have  had  great  cause  for  complaint 
and  dissatisfaction,  owing  to  the  delay  or  non-payment 
of  their  wages.  Sir  C.  E.  Gray,  writing  from  Jamaica, 
says  that  "  in  a  good  many  instances  the  payment  of  the 
wages  they  have  earned  has  been  either  very  irregularly 
made  or  not  at  all,  probably  on  account  of  the  inability 
of  the  employers."  He  says,  moreover,  — 

"  The  negroes  appear  to  me  to  be  generally  as  free 
from  rebellious  tendencies  or  turbulent  feelings  and  ma 
licious  thoughts  as  any  race  of  laborers  I  ever  saw  or 
heard  of.  My  impression  is,  indeed,  that  under  a  system 


42  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

of  perfectly  fair  dealing  and  of  real  justice  they  will  come 
to  be  an  admirable  peasantry  and  yeomanry ;  ablebodied, 
industrious,  and  hard  working,  frank,  and  well  disposed." 
It  must  indeed  be  admitted  that,  judging  by  their 
diminished  exports  and  the  growing  complaints  of  the 
owners  of  estates,  that  the  condition  of  the  islands,  in  a 
financial  point  of  view,  is  by  no  means  favorable.  An 
immediate  cause  of  this,  however,  must  be  found  in  the 
unfortunate  sugar  act  of  1846.  The  more  remote,  but  for 
the  most  part  powerful,  cause  of  the  present  depression  is 
to  be  traced  to  the  vicious  and  unnatural  system  of  slavery, 
which  has  been  gradually  but  surely  preparing  the  way 
for  ruin,  bankruptcy,  and  demoralization.  Never  yet,  by 
a  community  or  an  individual,  have  the  righteous  laws  of 
God  been  violated  with  impunity.  Sooner  or  later  comes 
the  penalty  which  the  infinite  Justice  has  affixed  to  sin. 
Partial  and  temporary  evils  and  inconveniences  have  un 
doubtedly  resulted  from  the  emancipation  of  the  laborers ; 
and  many  years  must  elapse  before  the  relations  of  the 
two  heretofore  antagonistic  classes  can  be  perfectly  ad 
justed  and  their  interests  brought  into  entire  harmony. 
But  that  freedom  is  not  to  be  held  mainly  accountable  for 
the  depression  of  the  British  colonies,  is  obvious  from  the 
fact  that  Dutch  Surinam,  where  the  old  system  of  slavery 
remains  in  its  original  rigor,  is  in  an  equally  depressed 
condition.  The  Paramaribo  Neuws  en  Advertentie  Blad, 


THOMAS    CARLYLE    OX    THE    SLAVE    QUESTION.       43 

quoted  in  the  Jamaica'  Gazette,  says,  under  date  of  Jan 
uary  2,  1850,  "Around  us  we  hear  nothing  but  com 
plaints.  People  seek  and  find  matter  in  every  thing  to 
picture  to  themselves  the  lot  of  the  place  in  which  they 
live  as  bitterer  than  that  of  any  other  country.  Of  a 
large  number  of  flourishing  plantations,  few  remain  that 
can  now  be  called  such.  So  deteriorated  has  property 
become  within  the  last  few  years,  that  many  of  these 
estates  have  not  been  able  to  defray  their  weekly  ex 
penses.  The  colony  stands  on  the  brink  of  a  yawning 
abyss,  into  which  it  must  inevitably  plunge  unless  some 
new  and  better  system  is  speedily  adopted.  It  is  impossi 
ble  that  our  agriculture  can  any  longer  proceed  on  its  old 
footing ;  our  laboring  force  is  dying  away,  and  the  social 
position  they  held  must  undergo  a  revolution." 

The  paper  from  which  we  have  quoted,  the  official 
journal  of  the  colony,  thinks  the  condition  of  the  emanci 
pated  British  colonies  decidedly  preferable  to  that  of 
Surinam,  where  the  old  slave  system  has  continued  in 
force,  and  insists  that  the  Dutch  government  must  follow 
the  example  of  Great  Britain.  The  actual  condition  of 
the  British  colonies  since  emancipation  is  perfectly  well 
known  in  Surinam :  three  of  them,  Essequibo,  Demerara, 
and  Berbice,  being  its  immediate  neighbors,  whatever  evils 
and  inconveniences  have  resulted  from  emancipation  must 
be  well  understood  by  the  Dutch  slaveholders ;  yet  we 


44  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

find  them  looking  towards  emancipation  as  the  only  pros 
pect  of  remedy  for  the  greater  evils  of  their  own  system. 
This  fact  is  of  itself  a  sufficient  answer  to  the  assumption 
of  Carlyle  and  others,  that  what  they  call  "  the  ruin  of  the 
colonies  "  has  been  produced  by  the  emancipation  acts  of 
1833  and  1838. 

We  have  no  fears  whatever  of  the  effect  of  this  literary 
monstrosity  which  we  have  been  considering  upon  the 
British  colonies.  Quashee,  black  and  ignorant  as  he  may 
be,  will  not  "  get  himself  made  a  slave  again."  The  mis 
sion  of  the  "beneficent  whip"  is  there  pretty  well  over; 
and  it  may  now  find  its  place  in  museums  and  cabinets  of 
ghastly  curiosities,  with  the  racks,  pillories,  thumbscrews, 
and  branding  irons  of  old  days.  What  we  have  feared, 
however,  is,  that  the  advocates  and  defenders  of  slave- 
holding  in  this  country  might  find  in  this  Discourse  matter 
of  encouragement,  and  that  our  anti-Christian  prejudices 
against  the  colored  man  might  be  strengthened  and  con 
firmed  by  its  malignant  vituperation  and  sarcasm.  On 
this  point  we  have  sympathized  with  the  forebodings  of  an 
eloquent  writer  in  the  London  Enquirer :  — 

"  We  cannot  imagine  a  more  deadly  moral  poison  for 
the  American  people  than  his  last  composition.  Every 
cruel  practice  of  social  exclusion  will  derive  from  it  new 
sharpness  and  venom.  The  slaveholder,  of  course,  will 
exult  to  find  himself,  not  apologized  for,  but  enthusiast!- 


THOMAS    CAKLYLE    ON    THE    SLAVE    QUESTION.      45 

cally  cheered,  upheld,  and  glorified,  by  a  writer  of  Eu 
ropean  celebrity.  But  it  is  not  merely  the  slave  who  will 
feel  Mr.  Carlyle's  hand  in  the  torture  of  his  flesh,  the  riv 
eting  of  his  fetters,  and  the  denial  of  light  to  his  mind. 
The  free  black  will  feel  him  too  in  the  more  contemptuous 
and  abhorrent  scowl  of  his  brother  man,  who  will  easily 
derive  from  this  unfortunate  essay  the  belief  that  his  in 
human  feelings  are  of  divine  ordination.  It  is  a  true  work 
of  the  devil,  the  fostering  of  a  tyrannical  prejudice.  Far 
and  wide  over  space,  and  long  into  the  future,  the  winged 
words  of  evil  counsel  will  go.  In  the  market-place,  in  the 
house,  in  the  theatre,  and  in  the  church  —  by  land  and  by 
sea,  in  all  the  haunts  of  men  —  their  influence  will  be 
felt  in  a  perennial  growth  of  hate  and  scorn,  and  suffering 
and  resentment.  Amongst  the  sufferers  will  be  many  to 
whom  education  has  given  every  refined  susceptibility  that 
makes  contempt  and  exclusion  bitter.  Men  and  women, 
faithful  and  diligent,  loving  and  worthy  to  be  loved,  and 
bearing,  it  may  be,  no  more  than  an  almost  imperceptible 
trace  of  African  descent,  will  continue  yet  longer  to  be 
banished  from  the  social  meal  of  the  white  man,  and  to  be 
spurned  from  his  presence  in  the  house  of  God,  because  a 
writer  of  genius  has  lent  the  weight  of  his  authority  and 
his  fame,  if  not  of  his  power,  to  the  perpetuation  of  a  pre 
judice  which  Christianity  was  undermining." 
A  more  recent  production,  Latter  Day  Pamphlets,  in 


46  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

which  man's  capability  of  self-government  is  more  than 
doubted,  democracy  somewhat  contemptuously  sneered  at, 
and  the  "model  republic"  itself  stigmatized  as  a  "nation 
of  bores,"  may  have  a  salutary  effect  in  restraining  our 
admiration  and  in  lessening  our  respect  for  the  defender 
and  eulogist  of  slavery.  The  sweeping  impartiality  with 
which  in  this  latter  production  he  applies  the  principle  of 
our  "  peculiar  institution  "  to  the  laboring  poor  man,  irre 
spective  of  color,  recognizing  as  his  only  inalienable  right 
"  the  right  of  being  set  to  labor "  for  his  "  born  lords," 
will,  we  imagine,  go  far  to  neutralize  the  mischief  of  his 
Discourse  upon  Negro  Slavery.  It  is  a  sad  thing  to  find 
so  much  intellectual  power  as  Carlyle  really  possesses  so 
little  under  the  control  of  the  moral  sentiments.  In  some 
of  his  earlier  writings  —  as,  for  instance,  his  beautiful 
tribute  to  the  Corn  Law  rhymer  —  we  thought  we  saw 
evidence  of  a  warm  and  generous  sympathy  with  the  poor 
and  the  wronged,  a  desire  to  ameliorate  human  suffering, 
which  would  have  done  credit  to  the  "  philanthropisms  of 
Exeter  Hall "  and  the  "  Abolition  of  Pain  Society."  Lat 
terly,  however,  like  Moliere's  quack,  he  has  "  changed  all 
that ; "  his  heart  has  got  upon  the  wrong  side ;  or  rather, 
he  seems  to  us  very  much  in  the  condition  of  the  coal 
burner  in  the  German  tale  who  had  swapped  his  heart  of 
flesh  for  a  cobble  stone. 


ENGLAND  UNDER  THE   LAST   STUART.* 

IN  accordance  with  the  labor-saving  spirit  of  the  age, 
we  have  in  these  volumes  an  admirable  example  of  his 
tory  made  easy.  Had  .they  been  published  in  his  time, 
they  might  have  found  favor  in  the  eyes  of  the  poet  Gray, 
who  declared  that  his  ideal  of  happiness  was  "to  lie  on  a 
sofa  and  read  eternal  new  romances." 

The  style  is  that  which  lends  such  a  charm  to  the 
author's  essays  —  brilliant,  epigrammatic,  vigorous.  In 
deed,  herein  lies  the  fault  of  the  work,  when  viewed  as  a 
mere  detail  of  historical  facts.  Its  sparkling  rhetoric  is 
not  the  safest  medium  of  truth  to  the  simple-minded  in 
quirer.  A  discriminating  and  able  critic  has  done  the 
author  no  injustice  in  saying  that,  in  attempting  to  give 
effect  and  vividness  to  his  thoughts  and  diction,  he  is  often 
overstrained  and  extravagant,  and  that  his  epigrammatic 
style  seems  better  fitted  for  the  glitter  of  paradox  than  the 

*  History  of  England  from  the  accession  of  James  II.    By  T.  B- 
Macaulay.     Vols.  I.  and  II. 

(47) 


48  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

sober  guise  of  truth.  The  intelligent  and  well-informed 
reader  of  the  volume  before  us  will  find  himself  at  times 
compelled  to  reverse  the  decisions  of  the  author,  and 
deliver  some  unfortunate  personage,  sect,  or  class  from 
the  pillory  of  his  rhetoric  and  the  merciless  pelting  of  his 
ridicule.  There  is  a  want  of  the  repose  and  quiet  which 
we  look  for  in  a  narrative  of  events  long  passed  away : 
we  rise  from  the  perusal  of  the  book  pleased  and  excited, 
but  with  not  so  clear  a  conception  of  the  actual  realities 
of  which  it  treats  as  would  be  desirable.  We  cannot  help 
feeling  that  the  author  has  been  somewhat  over-scrupu 
lous  in  avoiding  the  dulness  of  plain  detail,  and  the  dry- 
ness  of  dates,  names,  and  statistics.  The  freedom,  flowing 
diction,  and  sweeping  generality  of  the  reviewer  and 
essayist  are  maintained  throughout;  and,  with  one  re 
markable  exception,  the  History  of  England  might  be 
divided  into  papers  of  magazine  length,  and  published, 
without  any  violence  to  propriety,  as  a  continuation  of 
the  author's  labors  in  that  department  of  literature  in 
which  he  confessedly  stands  without  a  rival  —  historical 
review. 

That  exception  is,  however,  no  unimportant  one.  In 
our  view,  it  is  the  crowning  excellence  of  the  first  volume 
—  its  distinctive  feature  and  principal  attraction.  We 
refer  to  the  third  chapter  of  the  volume,  from  pp.  260  to 
398  —  the  description  of  the  condition  of  England  at  the 


ENGLAND    UNDER    THE    LAST    STUART.  49 

period  of  the  accession  of  James  II.  We  know  of  nothing 
like  it  in  the  entire  range  of  historical  literature.  The 
veil  is  lifted  up  from  the  England  of  a  century  and  a  half 
ago;  its  geographical,  industrial,  social,  and  moral  con 
dition  is  revealed ;  and,  as  the  panorama  passes  before  us 
of  lonely  heaths,  fortified  farm  houses,  bands  of  robbers, 
rude  country  squires  doling  out  the  odds  and  ends  of  their 
coarse  fare  to  clerical  dependants,  —  rough  roads,  servicea 
ble  only  for  horseback  travelling, — towns  with  unlighted 
streets,  reeking  with  filth  and  offal,  —  and  prisons  dampy 
loathsome,  infected  with  disease,  and  swarming  with  ver 
min, —  we  are  filled  with  wonder  at  the  contrast  which  it 
presents  to  the  England  of  our  day.  We  no  longer  sigh 
for  "  the  good  old  days."  The  most  confirmed  grumbler 
is  compelled  to  admit  that,  bad  as  things  now  are,  they 
were  far  worse  a  few  generations  back.  Macaulay,  in 
this  elaborate  and  carefully-prepared  chapter,  has  done  a 
good  service  to  humanity,  in  disabusing  well-intentioned 
ignorance  of  the  melancholy  notion  that  the  world  is 
growing  worse,  and  in  putting  to  silence  the  cant  of  blind, 
unreasoning  conservatism. 

In  1685  the  entire  population  of  England  our  author 
estimates  at  from  five  millions  to  five  millions  five  hundred 
thousand.  Of  the  eight  hundred  thousand  families  at  that 
period,  one  half  had  animal  food  twice  a  week.  The  other 
half  ate  it  not  at  all,  or  at  most  not  oftener  than  once  a 
4 


50  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

week.  "VVheaten  loaves  were  only  seen  at  the  tables  of 
the  comparatively  wealthy.  Rye,  barley,  and  oats  were 
the  food  of  the  vast  majority.  The  average  wages  of 
working  men  was  at  least  one  half  less  than  is  paid  in 
England  for  the  same  service  at  the  present  day.  One 
fifth  of  the  people  were  paupers,  or  recipients  of  parish 
relief.  Clothing  and  bedding  were  scarce  and  dear. 
Education  was  almost  unknown  to  the  vast  majority.  The 
houses  and  shops  were  not  numbered  in  the  cities ;  for 
porters,  coachmen,  'and  errand  runners  could  not  read. 
The  shopkeeper  distinguished  his  place  of  business  by 
painted  signs  and  graven  images.  Oxford  and  Cambridge 
Universities  were  little  better  than  a  modern  grammar  and 
Latin  school  in  a  provincial  village.  The  country  magis 
trate  used  on  the  bench  language  too  coarse,  brutal,  and 
vulgar  for  a  modern  tap  room.  Fine  gentlemen  in  London 
vied  with  each  other  in  the  lowest  ribaldry  and  the  grossest 
profanity.  The  poets  of  the  time,  from  Dryden  to  Dur- 
fey,  ministered  to  the  popular  licentiousness.  The  most 
shameless  indecency  polluted  their  pages.  The  theatre 
and  the  brothel  were  in  strict  unison.  The  church  winked 
at  the  vice  which  Opposed  itself  to  the  austere  morality  or 
hypocrisy  of  Puritanism.  The  superior  clergy,  with  a 
few  noble  exceptions,  were  self-seekers  and  courtiers  ;  the 
inferior  were  idle,  ignorant  hangers-on  upon  blaspheming 
squires  and  knights  of  the  shire.  The  domestic  chaplain, 


ENGLAND    UNDER    THE    LAST    STUART.  51 

of  all  men  living,  held  the  most  unenviable  position.  "  If 
he  was  permitted  to  dine  with  the  family,  he  was  ex 
pected  to  content  himself  with  the  plainest  fare.  He 
might  fill  himself  with  the  corn  beef  and  carrots  ;  but 
as  soon  as  the  tarts  and  cheese  cakes  made  their  appear 
ance  he  quitted  his  seat,  and  stood  aloof  till  he  was  sum 
moned  to  return  thanks  for  the  repast,  from  a  great  part 
of  which  he  had  been  excluded." 

Beyond  the  Trent  the  country  seems  at  this  period  to 
have  been  ju  a  state  of  barbarism.  The  parishes  kept 
bloodhounds  for  the  purpose  of  hunting  freebooters.  The 
farm  houses  were  fortified  and  guarded.  So  dangerous 
was  the  country  that  persons  about  travelling  thither 
made  their  wills.  Judges  and  lawyers  only  ventured 
therein,  escorted  by  a  strong  guard  of  armed  men. 

The  term  of  human  life  throughout  the  kingdom  was 
much  shorter  than  it  is  at  the  present  time.  The  year 
1685  was  not  a  sickly  year;  yet  one  in  twenty-three 
of  the  entire  population  of  London  died.  The  present 
annual  mortality  of  London  is  only  one  in  forty.  Filth 
was  allowed  to  accumulate  in  the  streets  of  the  capital 
to  a  degree  which  would  be  intolerable  to  modern  sensi 
tiveness.  The  dwelh'ngs  of  the  peasantry  were  loathsome 
as  sties.  Personal  cleanliness  was  little  attended  to. 
Foul  infectious  diseases,  now  almost  unknown,  were  com 
mon.  Fleas  and  other  detestable  vermin  abounded.  The 


52  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

sense  of  misery  was  stupefied  by  enormous  draughts  of 
beer,  almost  the  only  article  of  consumption  which  was 
cheaper  than  at  present. 

Sectarian  bigotry  and  persecution,  for  opinions  on  mat 
ters  about  which  often  neither  persecutor  nor  persecuted 
could  be  certain,  added  to  the  evils  of  the  times.  Neigh 
bor  acted  as  spy  upon  neighbor ;  swearing  and  drunken 
Cavaliers  avenged  the  persecution  and  plunder  of  their 
fathers  in  Cromwell's  time  by  packing  the  jails  with  the 
inheritors  of  the  faith  and  names  of  the  old  Puritan  zeal 
ots.  When  the  corpse  of  some  Independent  preacher 
or  Anabaptist  interpreter  of  prophecies  was  brought  out 
from  the  jail  where  heresy  expiated  its  offences,  the  rabble 
followed  it  with  scoffing  and  derision,  encouraged  thereto 
by  magistrates  and  clergy.  The  temper  of  the  time 
was  hard  and  cruel.  Macaulay  has  two  or  three  pages 
crowded  with  terrible  facts  touching  this  point.  The 
gospel  of  humanity  seems  neither  to  have  been  preached 
nor  felt. 

The  natural  resources  of  the  island  were  undeveloped. 
The  tin  mines  of  Cornwall,  which  two  thousand  years 
before  attracted  the  ships  of  the  merchant  princes  of 
Tyre  beyond  the  Pillars  of  Hercules,  were  indeed  worked 
to  a  considerable  extent;  but  the  copper  mines,  which 
now  yield  annually  fifteen  thousand  tons,  were  entirely 
neglected.  Rock  salt  was  known  to  exist,  but  was  not 


ENGLAND    UNDER   THE    LAST    STUART.  53 

used  to  any  considerable  extent  j'und  only  a  partial  supply 
of  salt  by  evaporation  was  obtained.  The  coal  and  iron 
of  England  are  at  this  time  the  stable  foundations  of  her 
industrial  and  commercial  greatness.  But  in  1685  the 
great  part  of  the  iron  used  was  imported.  Only  about 
ten  thousand  tons  were  annually  cast.  Now  eight  hun 
dred  thousand  is  the  average  annual  production.  Equally 
great  has  been  the  increase  in  coal  mining.  "  Coal,"  says 
Macaulay,  "  though  very  little  used  in  any  species  of 
manufacture,  was  already  the  ordinary  fuel  in  'some  dis 
tricts  which  were  fortunate  enough  to  possess  large  beds, 
and  in  the  capital,  which  could  easily  be  supplied  by  water 
carriage.  It  seems  reasonable  to  believe  that  at  least 
one  half  of  the  quantity  then  extracted  from  the  pits  was 
consumed  in  London.  The  consumption  of  London 
seemed  to  the  writers  of  that  age  enormous,  and  was 
often  mentioned  by  them  as  a  proof  of  the  greatness  of 
the  imperial  city.  They  scarcely  hoped  to  be  believed 
when  they  affirmed  that  two  hundred  and  eighty  thousand 
chaldrons  —  that  is  to  say,  about  three  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  tons  —  were,  in  the  last  year  of  the  reign  of 
Charles  II.,  brought  to  the  Thames.  At  present  near 
three  millions  and  a  half  of  tons  are  required  yearly  by 
the  metropolis ;  and  the  whole  annual  produce  cannot, 
on  the  most  moderate  computation,  be  estimated  at  less 
than  twenty  millions  of  tons." 


54  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

After  thus  passing  in  survey  the  England  of  our  an 
cestors  five  or  six  generations  back,  the  author  closes  his 
chapter  with  some  eloquent  remarks  upon  the  progress 
of  society.  Contrasting  the  hardness  and  coarseness  of 
the  age  of  which  he  treats  with  the  softer  and  more 
humane  features  of  our  own,  he  says,  "  Nowhere  could  be 
found  that  sensitive  and  restless  compassion  which  has 
in  our  time  extended  powerful  protection  to  the  factory 
child,  the  Hindoo  widow,  to  the  negro  slave ;  which  pries 
into  the  stores  and  water  casks  of  every  emigrant  ship ; 
which  winces  at  every  lash  laid  on  the  back  of  a  drunken 
soldier;  which  will  not  suffer  the  thief  in  the  hulks  to 
be  ill  fed  or  overworked ;  and  which  has  repeatedly  en 
deavored  to  save  the  life  even  of  the  murderer.  The 
more  we  study  the  annals  of  the  past,  the  more  shall  we 
rejoice  that  we  live  in  a  merciful  age,  in  an  age  in  which 
cruelty  is  abhorred,  and  in  which  pain,  even  when  de 
served,  is  inflicted  reluctantly  and  from  a  sense  of  duty. 
Every  class,  doubtless,  has  gained  largely  by  this  great 
moral  change  ;  but  the  class  which  has  gained  most  is 
the  poorest,  the  most  dependent,  and  the  most  defence 
less." 

The  history  itself  properly  commences  at  the  close  of 
this  chapter.  Opening  with  the  death  scene  of  the  dis 
solute  Charles  II.,  it  presents  a  series  of  brilliant  pictures 
of  the  events  succeeding.  The  miserable  fate  of  Gates 


ENGLAND    UNDER    THE    LAST    STUART.  OO 

and  Dangerfield,  the  perjured  inventors  of  the  Popish 
plot ;  the  trial  of  Baxter  by  the  infamous  Jeffreys ;  the 
ill-starred  attempt  of  the  Duke  of  Monmoutli ;  the  battle 
of  Sedgemoor,  and  the  dreadful  atrocities  of  the  king's 
soldiers,  and  the  horrible  perversion  of  justice  by  the 
king's  chief  judge  in  the  "  Bloody  Assizes ; "  the  bar 
barous  hunting  of  the  Scotch  dissenters  by  Claverhouse ; 
the  melancholy  fate  of  the  brave  and  noble  Duke  of  Ar- 
gyle,  —  are  described  with  a  graphic  power  unknown  to 
Smollet  or  Hume.  Personal  portraits  are  sketched  with 
a  bold  freedom  which  at  times  startles  us.  The  "old 
familiar  faces,"  as  we  have  seen  them  through  the  dust 
of  a  century  and  a  half,  start  before  us  with  lifelike  dis 
tinctness  of  outline  and  coloring.  Some  of  them  disappoint 
us ;  like  the  ghost  of  Hamlet's  father,  they  come  in  a 
"  questionable  shape."  Thus,  for  instance,  in  his  sketch 
of  William  Penn,  the  historian  takes  issue  with  the  world 
on  his  character,  and  labors  through  many  pages  of  dis 
ingenuous  inuendoes  and  distortion  of  facts  to  transform 
the  saint  of  history  into  a  pliant  courtier. 

The  second  volume  details  the  follies  and  misfortunes, 
the  decline  and  fall,  of  the  last  of  the  Stuarts.  All 
the  art  of  the  author's  splendid  rhetoric  is  employed  in 
awakening,  by  turns,  the  indignation  and  contempt  of  the 
reader  in  contemplating  the  character  of  the  wrong- 
headed  king.  In  portraying  that  character,  he  has  brought 


56  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

into  exercise  all  those  powers  of  invective  and  merciless 
ridicule  which  give  such  a  savage  relish  to  his  delineation 
of  Barrere.  To  preserve  the  consistency  of  this  charac 
ter,  he  denies  the  king  any  credit  for  whatever  was  really 
beneficent  and  praiseworthy  in  his  government.  He 
holds  up  the  royal  delinquent  in  only  two  lights :  the  one 
representing  him  as  a  tyrant  towards  his  people  ;  the 
other  as  the  abject  slave  of  foreign  priests  —  a  man  at 
once  hateful  and  ludicrous,  of  whom  it  is  difficult  to  speak 
without  an  execration  or  a  sneer. 

The  events  which  preceded  the  revolution  of  1688  ; 
the  undisguised  adherence  of  the  king  to  the  church  of 
Rome ;  the  partial  toleration  of  the  despised  Quakers 
and  Anabaptists  ;  the  gradual  relaxation  of  the  severity 
of  the  penal  laws  against  Papists  and  dissenters,  pre 
paring  the  way  for  the  royal  proclamation  of  entire  liberty 
of  conscience  throughout  the  British  realm,  allowing  the 
crop-eared  Puritan  and  the  Papist  priest  to  build  con 
venticles  and  mass  houses  under  the  very  eaves  of  the 
palaces  of  Oxford  and  Canterbury ;  the  mining  and 
countermining  of  Jesuits  and  prelates,  —  are  detailed 
with  impartial  minuteness.  The  secret  springs  of  the 
great  movements  of  the  time  are  laid  bare ;  the  mean 
and  paltry  instrumentalities  are  seen  at  work  in  the 
under  world  of  corruption,  prejudice,  and  falsehood.  No 
one,  save  a  blind,  unreasoning  partisan  of  Catholicism  or 


ENGLAND    UNDER    THE    LAST    STUART.  O7 

Episcopacy,  can  contemplate  this  chapter  in  English  his 
tory  without  a  feeling  of  disgust.  However  it  may  have 
been  overruled  for  good  by  that  Providence  which  takes 
the  wise  in  their  own  craftiness,  the  revolution  of  1G88, 
in  itself  considered,  affords  just  as  little  cause  for  self- 
congratulation  on  the  part  of  Protestants  as  the  substitu 
tion  of  the  supremacy  of  the  crowned  Bluebeard,  Henry 
VIIL,  for  that  of  the  pope,  in  the  English  church.  It  had 
little  in  common  with  the  revolution  of  1642.  The  field 
of  its  action  was  the  closet  of  selfish  intrigue  —  the  stalls 
of  discontented  prelates  —  the  chambers  of  the  wanton 
and  adulteress  —  the  confessional  of  a  weak  prince,  whose 
mind,  originally  narrow,  had  been  cramped  closer  still 
by  the  strait  jacket  of  religious  bigotry  and  superstition. 
The  age  of  nobility  and  heroism  had  well  nigh  passed 
away.  The  pious  fervor,  the  self-denial,  and  the  strict 
morality  of  the  Puritanism  of  the  days  of  Cromwell,  and 
the  blunt  honesty  and  chivalrous  loyalty  of  the  Cavaliers, 
had  both  measurably  given  place  to  the  corrupting  influ 
ences  of  the  licentious  and  infidel  court  of  Charles  II. ; 
and  to  the  arrogance,  intolerance,  and  shameless  self-seek 
ing  of  a  prelacy  which,  in  its  day  of  triumph  and  revenge, 
had  more  than  justified  the  terrible  denunciations  and 
scathing  gibes  of  Milton. 

Both  Catholic  and   Protestant  writers  have  misrepre 
sented  James  II.     He  deserves  neither  the  execrations 


58  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

of  the  one  nor  the  eulogies  of  the  other.  The  candid 
historian  must  admit  that  he  was,  after  all,  a  better  man 
than  his  brother  Charles  IL  He  was  a  sincere  and 
bigoted  Catholic,  and  was  undoubtedly  honest  in  the  dec 
laration,  which  he  made  in  that  unlucky  letter  which 
Burnet  ferreted  out  on  the  continent,  that  he  was  pre 
pared  to  make  large  steps  to  build  up  the  Catholic  church 
in  England,  and,  if  necessary,  to  become  a  martyr  in  her 
cause.  He  was  proud,  austere,  and  self-willed.  In  the 
treatment  of  his  enemies  he  partook  of  the  cruel  temper 
of  his  time.  He  was  at  once  ascetic  and  sensual,  alter 
nating  between  the  hair  shirt  of  penance  and  the  em 
braces  of  Catharine  Sedley.  His  situation  was  one  of 
the  most  difficult  and  embarrassing  which  can  be  con 
ceived  of.  He  was  at  once  a  bigoted  Papist  and  a 
Protestant  pope.  He  hated  the  French  domination  to 
which  his  brother  had  submitted  ;  yet  his  pride  as  sover 
eign  was  subordinated  to  his  allegiance  to  Rome  and  a 
superstitious  veneration  for  the  wily  priests  with  which 
Louis  XIV.  surrounded  him.  As  the  head  of  Anglican 
heretics,  he  was  compelled  to  submit  to  conditions  galling 
alike  to  the  sovereign  and  the  man.  He  found,  on  his 
accession,  the  terrible  penal  laws  against  the  Papists 
in  full  force  ;  the  hangman's  knife  was  yet  warm  with 
its  ghastly  butcher  work  of  quartering  and  disembowel 
ling  suspected  Jesuits  and  victims  of  the  lie  of  Titus 


ENGLAND    UNDER    THE    LAST    STUART.  59 

Gates ;  the  Tower  of  London  had  scarcely  ceased  to 
echo  the  groans  of  Catholic  confessors  stretched  on  the 
rack  by  Protestant  inquisitors.  He  was  torn  by  conflict 
ing  interests  and  spiritual  and  political  contradictions. 
The  prelates  of  the  established  church  must  share  the 
responsibility  of  many  of  the  worst  acts  of  the  early  part 
of  his  reign.  Oxford  sent  up  its  lawned  deputations  to 
mingle  the  voice  of  adulation  with  the  groans  of  tortured 
Covenanters,  and  fawning  ecclesiastics  burned  the  in 
cense  of  irreverent  flattery  under  the  nostrils  of  the 
Lord's  anointed,  while  the  blessed  air  of  England  was 
tainted  by  the  carcasses  of  the  ill-fated  followers  of  Mon- 
mouth,  rotting  on  a  thousand  gibbets.  While  Jeffreys 
was  threatening  Baxter  and  his  Presbyterian  friends 
with  the  pillory  and  whipping  post;  while  Quakers  and 
Baptists  were  only  spared  from  extermination  as  game 
preserves  for  the  sport  of  clerical  hunters ;  while  the 
prisons  were  thronged  with  the  heads  of  some  fifteen 
thousand  beggared  families,  and  dissenters  of  every  name 
and  degree  were  chased  from  one  hiding-place  to  another, 
like  David  among  the  cliffs  of  Ziph  and  the  rocks  of  the 
wild  goats,  —  the  thanksgivings  and  congratulations  of 
prelacy  arose  in  an  unbroken  strain  of  laudation  from 
all  the  Episcopal  palaces  of  England.  "What  mattered 
it  to  men,  in  whose  hearts,  to  use  the  language  of  John 
Milton,  "  the  sour  leaven  of  human  traditions,  mixed  with 


60  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

the  poisonous  dregs  of  hyprocrisy,  lay  basking  in  the 
sunny  warmth  of  wealth  and  promotion,  hatching  Anti 
christ,"  that  the  privileges  of  Englishmen  and  the 
rights  secured  by  the  great  charter  were  violated  and 
trodden  under  foot,  so  long  as  usurpation  enured  to  their 
own  benefit  ?  But  when  King  James  issued  his  Decla 
ration  of  Indulgence,  and  stretched  his  prerogative  on  the 
side  of  tolerance  and  charity,  the  zeal  of  the  prelates  for 
preserving  the  integrity  of  the  British  constitution  and 
the  limiting  of  the  royal  power  flamed  up  into  rebellion. 
They  forswore  themselves  without  scruple :  the  disciples 
of  Laud,  the  asserters  of  kingly  infallibility  and  divine 
right,  talked  of  usurped  power  and  English  rights  in  the 
strain  of  the  very  schismatics  whom  they  had  persecuted 
to  the  death.  There  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  James 
supposed  that,  in  issuing  his  declaration  suspending  the 
penal  laws,  he  had  transcended  the  rightful  prerogative 
of  his  throne.  The  power  which  he  exercised  had  been 
used  by  his  predecessors  for  far  less  worthy  purposes 
and  with  the  approbation  of  many  of  the  very  men  who 
now  opposed  him.  His  ostensible  object,  expressed  in 
language  which  even  those  who  condemn  his  policy  cannot 
but  admire,  was  a  laudable  and  noble  one.  "  We  trust," 
said  he,  "  that  it  will  not  be  vain  that  we  have  resolved 
to  use  our  utmost  endeavors  to  establish  liberty  of  con 
science  on  such  just  and  equal  foundations  as  will  ren- 


ENGLAND    UNDER    THE    LAST    STUART.  Gl 

der  it  unalterable,  and  secure  to  all  people  the  free 
exercise  of  their  religion,  by  which  future  ages  may  reap 
the  benefit  of  what  is  so  undoubtedly  the  general  good 
of  the  whole  kingdom."  Whatever  may  have  been  the 
motive  of  this  declaration,  —  even  admitting  the  sus 
picions  of  his  enemies  to  have  been  true,  that  he  advo 
cated  universal  toleration  as  the  only  means  of  restoring 
Roman  Catholics  to  all  the  rights  and  privileges  of  which 
the  penal  laws  deprived  them,  — •  it  would  seem  that  there 
could  have  been  no  very  serious .  objection  on  the  part 
of  real  friends  of  religious  toleration  to  the  taking  of 
him  at  his  word  and  placing  Englishmen  of  every  sect 
on  an  equality  before  the  law.  The  Catholics  were  in  a 
very  small  minority,  scarcely  at  that  time  as  numerous  as 
the  Quakers  and  Anabaptists.  The  army,  the  navy,  and 
nine  tenths  of  the  people  of  England  were  Protestants. 
Real  danger,  therefore,  from  a  simple  act  of  justice  to 
wards  their  Catholic  fellow-citizens  the  people  of  Eng 
land  had  no  ground  for  apprehension.  But  the  great 
truth,  which  is  even  now  but  imperfectly  recognized 
throughout  Christendom,  that  religious  opinions  rest  be 
tween  man  and  his  Maker,  and  not  between  man  and 
the  magistrate,  and  that  the  domain  of  conscience  is 
sacred,  was  almost  unknown  to  the  statesmen  and  school 
men  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Milton  —  ultra  liberal 
as  he  was  —  excepted  the  Catholics  from  his  plan  of 


62  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

toleration.  Locke,  yielding  to  the  prejudices  of  the  time, 
took  the  same  'ground.  The  enlightened  latitudinarian 
ministers  of  the  established  church  —  men  whose  talents 
and  Christian  charity  redeem  in  some  measure  the  char 
acter  of  that  church  in  the  day  of  its  greatest  power  and 
basest  apostasy  —  stopped  short  of  universal  toleration. 
The  Presbyterians  excluded  Quakers,  Baptists,  and  Pa 
pists  from  the  pale  of  their  charity.  With  the  single 
exception  of  the  sect  of  which  William  Penn  was  a  con 
spicuous  member,  the  idea  of  complete  and  impartial 
toleration  was  novel  and  unwelcome  to  all  sects  and 
classes  of  the  English  people.  Hence  it  was  that  the 
very  men  whose  liberties  and  estates  had  been  secured 
by  the  declaration,  and  who  were  thereby  permitted  to 
hold  their  meetings  in  peace  and  quietness,  used  their 
newly-acquired  freedom  in  denouncing  the  king,  because 
the  same  key  which  had  opened  their  prison  doors  had 
also  liberated  the  Papists  and  the  Quakers.  Baxter's 
severe  and  painful  spirit  could  not  rejoice  in  an  act  which 
had,  indeed,  restored  him  to  personal  freedom,  but  which 
had,  in  his  view,  also  offended  Heaven,  and  strengthened 
the  powers  of  Antichrist  by  extending  the  same  favor 
to  Jesuits  and  Ranters.  Bunyan  disliked  the  Quakers 
next  to  the  Papists ;  and  it  greatly  lessened  his  satisfac 
tion  at  his  release  from  Bedford  jail  that  it  had  been 
brought  about  by  the  influence  of  the  former  at  the  court 


ENGLAND    UNDER    THE    LAST    STUART.  63 

of  a  Catholic  prince.  Dissenters  forgot  the  wrongs  and 
persecutions  which  they  had  experienced  at  the  hands 
of  the  prelacy,  and  joined  the  bishops  in  opposition  to 
the  declaration.  They  almost  magnified  into  Christian 
confessors  the  prelates  who  remonstrated  against  the 
indulgence,  and  actually  plotted  .against  the  king  for 
restoring  them  to  liberty  of  person  and  conscience.  The 
nightmare  fear  of  Popery  overcame  their  love  of  religious 
liberty ;  and  they  meekly  offered  their  necks  to  the  yoke 
of  prelacy  as  the  only  security  against  the  heavier  one 
of  Papist  supremacy.  In  a  far  different  manner  the 
cleareyed  and  plainspoken  John  Milton  met  the  claims 
and  demands  of  the  hierarchy  in  his  time.  "  They  en 
treat  us,"  said  he,  "  that  we  be  not  weary  of  the  insup 
portable  grievances  that  our  shoulders  have  hitherto 
cracked  under ;  they  beseech  us  that  we  think  them  fit 
to  be  our  justices  of  peace,  our  lords,  our  highest  officers 
of  state.  They  pray  us  that  it  would  please  us  to  let 
them  still  haul  us  and  wrong  us  with  their  bandogs  and 
pursuivants  ;  and  that  it  would  please  the  Parliament 
that  they  may  yet  have  the  whipping,  fleecing,  and  flay 
ing  of  us  in  their  diabolical  courts,  to  tear  the  flesh  from 
our  bones,  and  into  our  wide  wounds,  instead  of  balm,  to 
pour  in  the  oil  of  tartar,  vitriol,  and  mercury.  Surely 
a  right,  reasonable,  innocent,  and  softhearted  petition ! 
O  the  relenting  bowels  of  the  fathers  ! " 


64  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

Considering  the  prominent  part  acted  by  William  Penn 
in  the  reign  of  James  II.,  and  his  active  and  influential 
support  of  the  obnoxious  declaration  which  precipitated 
the  revolution  of  1688,  it  could  hardly  have  been  other 
wise  than  that  his  character  should  suffer  from  the  un 
worthy  suspicions  and  prejudices  of  his  contemporaries. 
His  views  of  religious  toleration  were  too  far  in  advance 
of  the  age  to  be  received  with  favor.  They  were,  of 
necessity,  misunderstood  and  misrepresented.  All  his 
life  he  had  been  urging  them  with  the  earnestness  of 
one  whose  convictions  were  the  result,  not  so  much  of 
human  reason  as  of  what  he  regarded  as  divine  illumi 
nation.  What  the  council  of  James  yielded  upon  grounds 
of  state  policy  he  defended  on  those  of  religious  obliga 
tion.  He  had  suffered  in  person  and  estate  for  the  exer 
cise  of  his  religion.  He  had  travelled  over  Holland  and 
Germany,  pleading  with  those  in  authority  for  universal 
toleration  and  charity.  On  a  sudden,  on  the  accession 
of  James,  the  friend  of  himself  and  his  family,  he  found 
himself  the  most  influential  untitled  citizen  in  the  British 
realm.  He  had  free  access  to  the  royal  ear.  Asking 
nothing  for  himself  or  his  relatives,  he  demanded  only 
that  the  good  people  of  England  should  be  no  longer 
despoiled  of  liberty  and  estate  for  their  religious  opinions. 
James,  as  a  Catholic,  had  in  some  sort  a  common  interest 
with  his  dissenting  subjects,  and  the  declaration  was  for 


ENGLAND  UNDER  THE  LAST  -STUART.       65 

their  common  relief.  Penn,  conscious  of  the  rectitude 
of  his  own  motives  and  thoroughly  convinced  of  the 
Christian  duty  of  toleration,  welcomed  that  declaration 
as  the  precursor  of  the  golden  age  of  liberty  and  love 
and  good  will  to  men.  He  was  not  the  man  to  distrust 
the  motives  of  an  act  so  fully  in  accordance  with  his  life 
long  aspirations  and  prayers.  He  was  charitable  to  a 
fault :  his  faith  in  his  fellow-men  was  often  stronger  than 
a  clearer  insight  of  their  characters  would  have  justified. 
He  saw  the  errors  of  the  king,  and  deplored  them  ;  he 
denounced  Jeffreys  as  a  butcher  who  had  been  let  loose 
by  the  priests  ;  and  pitied  the  king,  who  was,  he  thought, 
swayed  by  evil  counsels.  He  remonstrated  against  the 
interference  of  the  king  with  Magdalen  College ;  and  re 
proved  and  rebuked  the  hopes  and  aims  of  the  more 
zealous  and  hotheaded  Catholics,  advising  them  to  be 
content  with  simple  toleration.  But  the  constitution  of 
his  mind  fitted  him  rather  for  the  commendation  of  the 
good  than  the  denunciation  of  the  bad.  He  had  little  in 
common  with  the  bold  and  austere  spirit  of  the  Puritan 
reformers.  He  disliked  their  violence  and  harshness ; 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  he  was  attracted  and  pleased  by 
the  gentle  disposition  and  mild  counsels  of  Locke,  and 
Tillotson,  and  the  latitudinarians  of  the  English  church. 
He  was  the  intimate  personal  and  political  friend  of  Al 
gernon  Sydney ;  sympathized  with  his  republican  the- 
5 


66  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

cries;  and  shared  his  abhorrence  of  tyranny,  civil  and 
ecclesiastical.  He  found  in  him  a  man  after  his  o>v:n 
heart  —  genial,  generous,  and  loving ;  faithful  to  duty  and 
the  instincts  of  humanity  —  a  true  Christian  gentleman. 
His  sense  of  gratitude  was  strong,  and  his  personal  .friend 
ships  sometimes  clouded  his  judgment.  In  giving  his 
support  to  the  measures  of  James  in  behalf  of  liberty  of 
conscience,  it  must  be  admitted  that  he  acted  in  consist 
ency  with  his  principles  and  professions.  To  have  taken 
ground  against  them,  he  must  have  given  the  lie  to  his 
declarations  from  his  youth  upward.  He  could  not  dis 
own  and  deny  his  own  favorite  doctrine  because  it  came 
from  the  lips  of  a  Catholic  king  and  his  Jesuit  advisers ; 
and  in  thus  rising  above  the  prejudices  of  his  time,  and 
appealing  to  the  reason  and  humanity  of  the  people  of 
England  in  favor  of  a  cordial  indorsement  on  the  part 
of  Parliament  of  the  principles  of  the  declaration,  he  be 
lieved  that  he  was  subserving  the  best  interests  of  his 
obeloved  country  and  fulfilling  the  solemn  obligations  of 
religious  duty.  The  downfall  of  James  exposed  Penn 
to  peril  and  obloquy.  Perjured  informers  endeavored  to 
swear  away  his  life;  and,  although  nothing  could  be 
proved  against  him  beyond  the  fact  that  he  had  steadily 
supported  the  great  measure  of  toleration,  he  was  com 
pelled  to  live  secluded  in  his  private  lodgings  in  London 
for  two  or  three  years,  with  a  proclamation  for  his  arrest 


ENGLAND    UNDER    THE    LAST    STUART.  67 

hanging  over  his  head.  At  length,  the  principal  informer 
against  him  having  been  found  guilty  of  perjury,  the 
government  warrant  was  withdrawn  ;  and  Lords  Sidney, 
Rochester,  and  Somers,  and  the  Duke  of  Buckingham 
publicly  bore  testimony  that  nothing  had  been  urged 
against  him  save  by  impostors,  and  that  "they  had 
known  him,  some  of  them  for  thirty  years,  and  had  never 
known  him  to  do  an  ill  thing,  but  many  good  offices."  It 
is  a  matter  of  regret  that  one  professing  to  hold  the  impar 
tial  pen  of  history  should  have  given  the  sanction  of  his 
authority  to  the  slanderous  and  false  imputations  of  such 
a  man  as  Burnet,  who  has  never  been  regarded  as  an 
authentic  chronicler.*  The  pantheon  of  history  should 

*  Gilbert  Burnet,  in  liberality  as  a  politician  and  tolerance  as  a 
churchman,  was  far  in  advance  of  his  order  and  time.  It  is  true  that 
he  shut  out  the  Catholics  from  the  pale  of  his  charity  and  barely  tol 
erated  the  dissenters.  The  idea  of  entire  religious  liberty  and  equality 
shocked  even  his  moderate  degree  of  sensitiveness.  He  m*t  Penn  at 
the  court  of  the  Prince  of  Orange,  and,  after  a  long  and  fruitless  effort 
to  convince  the  dissenter  that  the  penal  laws  against  the  Catholics 
should  be  enforced,  and  allegiance  to  the  established  church  continue 
the  condition  of  qualification  for  offices  of  trust  and  honor,  and  that 
he  and  his  friends  should  rest  contented  with  simple  toleration,  he 
became  irritated  by  the  inflexible  adherence  of  Penn  to  the  principle 
of  entire  religious  freedom.  One  of  the  most  worthy  sons  of  the  Epis 
copal  church,  Thomas  Clarkson,  alluding  to  this  discussion,  says, 
"Burnet  never  mentioned  him  (Penn)  afterwards  but  coldly  or  sneer- 
ingly,  or  in  a  way  to  lower  him  in  the  estimation  of  the  reader,  when- 


68  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

not  be  lightly  disturbed.  A  good  man's  character  is  the 
world's  common  legacy ;  and  humanity  is  not  so  rich  in 
models  of  purity  and  goodness  as  to  be  able  to  sacrifice 
such  a  reputation  as  that  of  William  Penn  to  the  point 
of  an  antithesis  or  the  effect  of  a  paradox. 

ever  he  had  occasion  to  speak  of  him  in  his  History  of  his  Own 
Times." 

He  was  a  man  of  strong  prejudices  ;  he  lived  in  the  midst  of  revo 
lutions,  plots,  and  intrigues  ;  he  saw  much  of  the  worst  side  of  human 
nature  ;  and  he  candidly  admits,  in  the  preface  to  his  great  work, 
that  he  was  inclined  to  think  generally  the  worst  of  men  and  parties, 
and  that  the  reader  should  make  allowance  for  this  inclination,  al 
though  he  had  honestly  tried  to  give  the  truth.  Dr.  King,  of  Oxford, 
in  his  Anecdotes  of  his  Own  Times,  p.  185,  says,  "  I  knew  Burnet : 
he  was  a  furious  party  man,  and  easily  imposed  upon  by  any  lying 
spirit  of  his  faction ;  but  he  was  a  better  pastor  than  any  man  who 
is  now  seated  on  the  bishops'  bench."  The  tory  writers  —  Swift, 
Pope,  Arbuthnot,  and  others  —  have  undoubtedly  exaggerated  the 
defects  of  Burnet's  narrative ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  his  whig 
commentators  have  excused  them  on  the  ground  of  his  avowed  and 
fierce  partisanship.  Dr.  Johnson,  in  his  blunt  way,  says,  "  I  do  not 
belieye  Burnet  intentionally  lied ;  but  he  was  so  much  prejudiced  that 
he  took  no  pains  to  find  out  the  truth."  On  the  contrary,  Sir  James 
Mackintosh,  in  the  Edinburgh  Review,  speaks  of  the  bishop  as  an 
honest  writer,  seldom  substantially  erroneous,  though  often  inaccu 
rate  in  points  of  detail;  and  Macaulay,  who  has  quite  too  closely 
followed  him  in  his  history,  defends  him  as  at  least  quite  as  accurate 
as  his  contemporary  writers,  and  says  that,  "  in  his  moral  character, 
as  in  his  intellectual,  great  blemishes  were  more  than  compensated 
by  great  excellences." 


THE    TWO   PROCESSIONS. 

"  Look  upon  this  picture,  and  on  this."  —  Hamlet. 

CONSIDERING  that  we  have  a  slave  population  of  nearly 
three  millions,  and  that  in  one  half  of  the  states  of  the 
republic  it  is  as  hazardous  to  act  upon  the  presumption 
that  "  all  men  are  created  free  and  equal "  as  it  would  be 
in  Austria  or  Russia,  the  lavish  expression  of  sympathy 
and  extravagant  jubilation  with  which,  as  a  people,  we  are 
accustomed  to  greet  movements  in  favor  of  freedom  abroad, 
are  not  a  little  remarkable.  We  almost  went  into  ecsta 
sies  over  the  first  French  revolution  ;  we  filled  our  papers 
with  the  speeches  of  orator  Hunt  and  the  English  radi 
cals  ;  we  fraternized  with  the  United  Irishmen ;  we  hailed 
as  brothers  in  the  cause  of  freedom  the  very  Mexicans 
whom  we  have  since  wasted  with  fire  and  sword  ;  our  ora 
tors,  north  and  south,  grew  eloquent  and  classic  over  the 
Greek  and  Polish  revolutions.  In  short,  long  ere  this, 
if  the  walls  of  kingcraft  and  despotism  had  been,  like  those 
of  Jericho,  destined  to  be  overthrown  by  sound,  our  Fourth 

(69) 


70  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

of  July  cannon  shootings  and  bell  ringings,  together  with 
our  fierce,  grandiloquent  speech-makings  in  and  out  of 
Congress,  on  the  occasions  referred  to,  would  have  left  no 
stone  upon  another. 

It  is  true  that  an  exception  must  be  made  in  the  case 
of  Hayti.  We  fired  no  guns,  drank  no  toasts,  made  no 
speeches  in  favor  of  the  establishment  of  that  new  re 
public  in  our  neighborhood.  The  very  mention  of  the 
possibility  that  Haytien  delegates  might  ask  admittance 
to  the  congress  of  the  free  republics  of  the  new  world 
at  Panama  "  frightened  from  their  propriety "  the  eager 
propagandists  of  republicanism  in  the  senate,  and  gave  a 
deathblow  to  their  philanthropic  projects.  But  as  Hayti 
is  a  republic  of  blacks,  who,  having  revolted  from  their 
masters  as  well  as  from  the  mother  country,  have  placed 
themselves  entirely  without  the  pale  of  Anglo-Saxon  sym 
pathy  by  their  impertinent  interference  with  the  monopoly 
of  white  liberty,  this  exception  by  no  means  disproves  the 
general  fact,  that,  in  the  matter  of  powder  burning,  bell 
jangling,  speech-making,  toast-drinking  admiration  of 
freedom  afar  off  and  in  the  abstract,  we  have  no  rivals. 
The  caricature  of  our  "  general  sympathizers  "  in  Martin 
Chuzzlewit  is  by  no  means  a  fancy  sketch. 

The  news  of  the  revolution  of  the  three  days  in  Paris, 
and  the  triumph  of  the  French  people  over  Charles  X. 
and  his  ministers,  as  a  matter  of  course  acted  with  great 


THE    TWO    PROCESSIONS.  71 

effect  upon  our  national  susceptibility.  We  all  threw  up 
our  hats  in  excessive  joy  at  the  spectacle  of  a  king  dashed 
down  headlong  from  his  throne  and  chased  out  of  his 
kingdom  by  his  long-suffering  and  oppressed  subjects. 
We  took  half  the  credit  of  the  performance  to  ourselves, 
inasmuch  as  Lafayette  was  a  principal  actor  in  it.  Our 
editors,  from  Passamaquoddy  to  the  Sabine,  indited  para 
graphs  for  a  thousand  and  one  newspapers,  congratulating 
the  Parisian  patriots,  and  prophesying  all  manner  of  evil 
to  holy  alliances,  kings,  and  aristocracies.  The  Na 
tional  Intelligencer  of  September  27,  1830,-  contains  a  full 
account  of  the  public  rejoicings  of  the  good  people  of 
Washington  on  the  occasion.  Bells  were  rung  in  all  the 
steeples,  guns  were  fired,  and  a  grand  procession  was 
formed,  including  the  President  of  the  United  States,  the 
heads  of  departments,  and  other  public  functionaries. 
Decorated  with  tricolored  ribbons,  and  with  tricolored 
flags  mingling  with  the  stripes  and  stars  over  their  heads, 
and  gazed  down  upon  by  bright  eyes  from  window  and 
balcony,  the  " general  sympathizers"  moved  slowly  and 
majestically  through  the  broad  avenue  towards  the  Capi 
tol,  to  celebrate  the  revival  of  French  liberty  in  a  manner 
becoming  the  chosen  rulers  of  a  free  people. 

What  a  spectacle  was  this  for  the  representatives  of 
European  kingcraft  at  our  seat  of  government!  How 
the  titled  agents  of  Metternich  and  Nicholas  must  have 


72  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

trembled,  in  view  of  this  imposing  demonstration,  for  the 
safety  of  their  "  peculiar  institutions  "  ! 

Unluckily,  however,  the  moral  effect  of  this  grand 
spectacle  was  marred  somewhat  by  the  appearance  of 
another  procession,  moving  in  a  contrary  direction.  It 
was  a  gang  of  slaves  !  Handcuffed  in  pairs,  with  the 
sullen  sadness  of  despair  in  their  faces,  they  marched 
wearily  onward  to  the  music  of  the  driver's  whip  and  the 
clanking  iron  on  their  limbs.  Think  of  it !  Shouts  of 
triumph,  rejoicing  bells,  gay  banners,  and  glittering  cav 
alcades,  in  honor  of  Liberty,  in  immediate  contrast  with 
men  and  women  chained  and  driven  like  cattle  to  market ! 
The  editor  of  the  American  Spectator,  a  paper  published 
at  Washington  at  that  time,  speaking  of  this  black  pro 
cession  of  slavery,  describes  it  as  "  driven  along  by  what 
had  the  appearance  of  a  man  on  horseback."  The  miser 
able  wretches  who  composed  it  were  doubtless  consigned 
to  a  slave  jail  to  await  their  purchase  and  transportation 
to  the  south  or  south-west;  and  perhaps  formed  a  part 
of  that  drove  of  human  beings  which  the  same  editor  states 
that  he  saw  on  the  Saturday  following,  "  males  and  females 
chained  in  couples,  starting  from  Robey's  tavern,  on  foot, 
for  Alexandria,  to  embark  on  board  a  slave  ship." 

At  a  Virginia  camp  meeting,  many  years  ago,  one  of  the 
brethren,  attempting  an  exhortation,  stammered,  faltered, 
and  finally  came  to  a  dead  stand.  "  Sit  down,  brother," 


THE    TWO    PROCESSIONS.  73 

said  old  Father  Kyle,  the  one-eyed  abolition  preacher ; 
'*  it's  no  use  to  try ;  you  can't  preach  with  twenty  negroes 
sticking  in  your  throat ! "  It  strikes  us  that  our  country 
is  very  much  in  the  condition  of  the  poor  confused 
preacher  at  the  camp  meeting.  Slavery  sticks  in  its 
throat,  and  spoils  its  finest  performances,  political  and 
ecclesiastical;  confuses  the  tongues  of  its  evangelical 
alliances ;  makes  a  farce  of  its  Fourth  of  July  celebra 
tions  ;  and,  as  in  the  case  of  the  grand  Washington  pro 
cession  of  1830,  sadly  mars  the  effect  of  its  rejoicings  in 
view  of  the  progress  of  liberty  abroad.  There  is  a  stam 
mer  in  all  our  exhortations ;  our  moral  and  political 
homilies  are  sure  to  run  into  confusions  and  contradic 
tions;  and  the  response  which  comes  to  us  from  the 
nations  is  not  unlike  that  of  Father  Kyle  to  the  planter's 
attempt  at  sermonizing:  "It's  no  use,  brother  Jonathan ; 
you  can't  preach  liberty  with  three  millions  of  slaves  in 
your  throat ! " 


EVANGELINE* 

EUREKA  !  Here,  then,  we  have  it'at  last —  an  Ameri 
can  poem,  with  the  lack  of  which  British  reviewers  have 
so  long  reproached  us.  Selecting  the  subject  of  all  others 
best  calculated  for  his  purpose,  —  the  expulsion  of  the 
French  settlers  of  Acadie  from  their  quiet  and  pleasant 
homes  around  the  Basin  of  Minas,  one  of  the  most  sadly 
romantic  passages  in  the  history  of  the  colonies  of  the 
north,  —  he  has  succeeded  in  presenting  a  series  of  ex 
quisite  pictures  of  tne  striking  and  peculiar  features  of 
life  and  nature  in  the  new  world.  The  range  of  these 
delineations  extends  from  Nova  Scotia  on  the  north-east 
to  the  spurs  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  on  the  west  and  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico  on  the  south.  Nothing  can  be  added  to 
his  pictures  of  quiet  farm  life  in  Acadie,  the  Indian  sum 
mer  of  our  northern  latitudes,  the  scenery  of  the  Ohio  and 
Mississippi  Rivers,  the  bayous  and  cypress  forests  of  the 
south,  the  mocking  bird,  the  prairie,  the  Ozark  hills,  the 

*  Evangeline,  a  Tale  of  Acadie.    By  Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow. 

(74) 


EVANGELINE.  75 

Catholic  missions,  and  the  wild  Arabs  of  the  west,  roam 
ing  with  the  buffalo  along  the  banks  of  the  Nebraska. 
The  hexameter  measure  he  has  chosen  has  the  advantage 
of  a  prosaic  freedom  of  expression,  exceedingly  well 
adapted  to  a  descriptive  and  narrative  poem ;  yet  we  are 
constrained  to  think  that  the  story  of  Evangeline  would 
have  been  quite  as  acceptable  to  the  public  taste  had 
it  been  told  in  the  poetic  prose  of  the  author's  Hy 
perion. 

In  reading  it  and  admiring  its  strange  melody  we  were 
not  without  fears  that  the  success  of  Professor  Longfellow 
in  this  novel  experiment  might  prove  the  occasion  of  call 
ing  out  a  host  of  awkward  imitators,  leading  us  over  weary 
wastes  of  hexameters,  enlivened  neither  by  dew,  rain,  nor 
fields  of  offering. 

Apart  from  its  Americanism,  the  poem  has  merits  of  a 
higher  and  universal  character.  It  is  not  merely  a  work 
of  art ;  the  pulse  of  humanity  throbs  warmly  through  it 
The  portraits  of  Basil  the  blacksmith,  the  old  notary, 
Benedict  Bellefontaine  and  good  Father  Felician,  fairly 
glow  with  life.  The  beautiful  Evangeline,  loving  and 
faithful  unto  death,  is  a  heroine  worthy  of  any  poet  of  the 
present  century. 

The  editor  of  the  Boston  Chronotype,  in  the  course  of 
an  appreciative  review  of  this  poem,  urges  with  some 
force  a  single  objection,  which  we  are  induced  to  notice, 


76  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

as  it  is  one  not  unlikely  to  present  itself  to  the  minds  of 
other  readers  :  — 

"  We  think  Mr.  Longfellow  ought  to  have  expressed  a 
much  deeper  indignation  at  the  base,  knavish,  and  heart 
less  conduct  of  the  English  and  colonial  persecutors  than 
he  has  done.  He  should  have  put  far  bolder  and  deeper 
tints  in  the  picture  of  suffering.  One  great,  if  not  the 
greatest,  end  of  poetry  is  rhadaman thine  justice.  The 
poet  should  mete  out  their  deserts  to  all  his  heroes ;  honor 
to  whom  honor,  and  infamy  to  whom  infamy,  is  due. 

"  It  is  true  that  the  wrong  in  this  case  is  in  a  great 
degree  fathered  upon  our  own  Massachusetts ;  and  it  may 
be  said  that  it  is  a  foul  bird  that  pollutes  its  own  nest. 
We  deny  the  applicability  of  the  rather  musty  proverb. 
All  the  worse.  Of  not  a  more  contemptible  vice  is  what 
is  called  American  literature  guilty  than  this  of  unmiti 
gated  self-laudation.  If  we  persevere  in  it,  the  stock  will 
become  altogether  too  small  for  the  business.  It  seems 
that  no  period  of  our  history  has  been  exempt  from 
materials  for  patriotic  humiliation  and  national  self- 
reproach;  and  surely  the  present  epoch  is  laying  in  a 
large  store  of  that  sort.  Had  our  poets  always  told  us  the 
truth  of  ourselves,  perhaps  it  would  now  be  otherwise. 
National  self-flattery  and  concealment  of  faults  must  of 
course  have  their  natural  results." 

We  must  confess  that  we  read  the  first  part  of  Evan- 


EVANGELINE.  77 

geline  with  something  of  the  feeling  so  forcibly  expressed 
by  Professor  Wright.  The  natural  and  honest  indigna 
tion  with  which,  many  years  ago,  we  read  for  the  first 
time  that  dark  page  of  our  colonial  history,  —  the  expul 
sion  of  the  French  neutrals,  —  was  reawakened  by  the 
simple  pathos  of  the  poem ;  and  we  longed  to  find  an  ade 
quate  expression  of  it  in  the  burning  language  of  the  poet. 
We  marvelled  that  he  who  could  so  touch  the  heart  by  his 
description  of  the  sad  suffering  of  the  Acadian  peasants 
should  have  permitted  the  authors  of  that  suffering  to 
escape  without  censure.  The  outburst  of  the  stout  Basil, 
in  the  Church  of  Grand  Pre,  was,  we  are  fain  to  acknowl 
edge,  a  great  relief  to  us.  But,  before  reaching  the  close 
of  the  volume,  we  were  quite  reconciled  to  the  author's 
forbearance.  The  design  of  the  poem  is  manifestly  in 
compatible  with  stern  "  rhadamanthine  justice  "  and  indig 
nant  denunciation  of  wrong.  It  is  a  simple  story  of  quiet 
pastoral  happiness,  of  great  sorrow  and  painful  bereave 
ment,  and  of  the  evidence  of  a  love  which,  hoping  and 
seeking  always,  winders  evermore  up  and  down  the  wil 
derness  of  the  world,  baffled  at  every  turn,  yet  still  retain 
ing  faith  in  God  and  in  the  object  of  its  lifelong  quest. 
It  was  no  part  of  the  writer's  object  to  investigate  the 
merits  of  the  question  at  issue  between  the  poor  Acadians 
and  their  Puritan  neighbors.  Looking  at  the  materials 
before  him  with  the  eye  of  an  artist  simply,  he  has 


78  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

arranged  them  to  suit  his  idea  of  the  beautiful  and  pa 
thetic,  leaving  to  some  future  historian  the  duty  of  sitting 
in  judgment  upon  the  actors  in  the  atrocious  outrage  which 
furnished  them.  With  this  we  are  content.  The  poem 
now  has  a  unity  and  sweetness  which  might  have  been 
destroyed  by  attempting  to  avenge  the  wrongs  it  so  vividly 
depicts.  It  is  a  psalm  of  love  and  forgiveness :  the  gen 
tleness  and  peace  of  Christian  meekness  and  forbearance 
breathes  through  it.  Not  a  word  of  censure  is  directly 
applied  to  the  marauding  workers  of  the  mighty  sorrow 
which  it  describes  just  as  it  would  a  calamity  from  the 
elements  —  a  visitation  of  God.  The  reader,  however, 
cannot  fail  to  award  justice  to  the  wrong  doers.  The 
unresisting  acquiescence  of  the  Acadians  only  deepens  his 
detestation  of  the  cupidity  and  religious  bigotry  of  their 
spoilers.  Even  in  the  language  of  the  good  Father  Fe- 
lician,  beseeching  his  flock  to  submit  to  the  strong  hand 
which  had  been  laid  upon  them,  we  see  and  feel  the  mag 
nitude  of  the  crime  to  be  forgiven :  — 

"  Lo,  where  the  crucified  Christ  from  his  cross  is  gazing  upon  you  ! 
See  in  those  sorrowful  eyes  what  meekness  and  holy  compassion  ! 
Hark !  how  those  lips  still  repeat  the  prayer,  0  Father,  forgive 

them! 

Let  us  repeat  that  prayer  in  the  hour  when  the  wicked  assail  us  ; 
Let  us  repeat  it  now,  and  say,  0  Father,  forgive  them!  " 

How  does  this  simple  prayer  of  the  Acadians  contrast 
with  the  "deep  damnation  of  their  taking  off" ! 


EVAXGELINE.  79 

The  true  history  of  the  Puritans  of  New  England  is 
yet  to  be  written.  Somewhere  midway  between  the 
caricatures  of  the  Church  party  and  the  self-laudations 
of  their  own  writers  the  point  may  doubtless  be  found 
from  whence  an  impartial  estimate  of  their  character  may 
be  formed.  They  had  noble  qualities :  the  firmness  and 
energy  which  they  displayed  in  the  colonization  of  New 
England  must  always  command  admiration.  TVe  would 
not  rob  them,  were  it  in  our  power  to  do  so,  of  one  jot  or 
tittle  of  their  rightful  honor.  But,  with  all  the  lights 
which  we  at  present  possess,  we  cannot  allow  their  claim 
of  saintship  without  some  degree  of  qualification.  How 
they  seemed  to  their  Dutch  neighbors  at  New  Nether 
lands,  and  their  French  ones  at  Nova  Scotia,  and  to  the 
poor  Indians,  hunted  from  their  fisheries  and  game 
grounds,  we  can  very  well  conjecture.  It  may  be  safely 
taken  for  granted  that  their  gospel  claim  to  the  inherit 
ance  of  the  earth  was  not  a  little  questionable  to  the 
Catholic  fleeing  for  his  life  from  their  jurisdiction,  to  the 
banished  Baptist  shaking  off  the  dust  of  his  feet  against 
them,  and  to  the  martyred  Quaker  denouncing  woe  and 
judgment  upon  them  from  the  steps  of  the  gallows.  Most 
of  them  were,  beyond  a  doubt,  pious  and  sincere ;  but  we 
are  constrained  to  believe  that  among  them  were  those 
who  wore  "the  livery  of  heaven"  from  purely  selfish 
motives,  in  a  community  where  church  membership  was 


80  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

an  indispensable  requisite,  the  only  "ope?i  sesame"  before 
which  the  doors  of  honor  and  distinction  swung  wide  to 
needy  or  ambitious  aspirants.  Mere  adventurers,  men  of 
desperate  fortunes,  bankrupts  in  character  and  purse  con 
trived  to  "  make  gain  of  godliness  "  under  the  church  and 
state  government  of  New  England,  put  on  the  austere  exte 
rior  of  sanctity,  quoted  Scripture,  anathematized  heretics, 
whipped  Quakers,  exterminated  Indians,  "burned  and 
spoiled  the  villages  of  their  Catholic  neighbors,  and  hewed 
down  their  graven  images  "  and  "  houses  of  Riminon."  It 
is  curious  to  observe  how  a  fierce  religious  zeal  against 
heathens  and  idolaters  went  hand  and  hand  with  the  old 
Anglo-Saxon  love  of  land  and  plunder.  Every  crusade 
undertaken  against  the  Papists  of  the  French  colonies 
had  its  Puritan  Peter  the  Hermit  to  summon  the  saints 
to  the  wars  of  the  Lord.  At  the  siege  of  Louisburg,  ten 
years  before  the  onslaught  upon  the  Acadian  settlers,  one 
minister  marched  with  the  colonial  troops,  axe  in  hand, 
to  hew  down  the  images  in  the  French  churches ;  while 
another  officiated  in  the  double  capacity  of  drummer  and 
chaplain  —  a  "drum  ecclesiastic,"  as  Hudibras  has  it. 

At  the  late  celebration  of  the  landing  of  the  Pilgrims  in 
New  York,  the  orator  of  the  day  labored  at  great  length 
to  show  that  the  charge  of  intolerance,  as  urged  against 
the  colonists  of  New  England,  is  unfounded  in  fact.  The 
banishment  of  the  Catholics  was  very  sagaciously  passed 


EVANGELINE.  81 

over  in  silence,  inasmuch  as  the  Catholic  Bishop  of  New 
York  was  one  of  the  invited  guests,  and  (hear  it,  shade  of 
Cotton  Mather !)  one  of  the  regular  toasts  was  a  compli 
ment  to  the  pope.  The  expulsion  of  Roger  Williams  was 
excused  and  partially  justified ;  while  the  whipping,  ear 
cropping,  tongue  boring,  and  hanging  of  the  Quakers  was 
defended,  as  the  only  effectual  method  of  dealing  with 
such  "  devil-driven  heretics,"  as  Mather  calls  them.  The 
orator,  in  the  new-born  zeal  of  his  amateur  Puritanism, 
stigmatizes  the  persecuted  class  as  "  fanatics  and  ranters, 
foaming  forth  their  mad  opinions ; "  compares  them  to  the 
Mormons  and  the  crazy  followers  of  Mathias ;  and  cites 
an  instance  of  a  poor  enthusiast,  named  Eccles,  who,  far 
gone  in  the  u  tailor's  melancholy,"  took  it  into  his  head 
that  he  must  enter  into  a  steeple-house  pulpit  and  stitch 
breeches  "  in  singing  time  "  —  a  circumstance,  by  the  way, 
which  took  place  in  Old  England  —  as  a  justification  of 
the  atrocious  laws  of  the  Massachusetts  colony.  We  have 
not  the  slightest  disposition  to  deny  the  fanaticism  and 
folly  of  some  few  professed  Quakers  in  that  day ;  and  had 
the  Puritans  treated  them  as  the  pope  did  one  of  their 
number  whom  he  found  crazily  holding  forth  in  the  Church 
of  St.  Peter,  and  consigned  them  to  the  care  of  physicians 
as  religious  monomaniacs,  no  sane  man  could  have  blamed 
them.  Every  sect,  in  its  origin,  and  especially  in  its  time 
of  persecution,  has  had  its  fanatics.  The  early  Christians, 
6 


82  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

if  we  may  credit  the  admissions  of  their  own  writers  or 
attach  the  slightest  credence  to  the  statements  of  pagan 
authors,  were  by  no  means  exempt  from  reproach  and 
scandal  in  this  respect.  Were  the  Puritans  themselves 
the  men  to  cast  stones  at  the  Quakers  and  Baptists  ?  Had 
they  not,  in  the  view  at  least  of  the  established  church, 
turned  all  England  upside  down  with  their  fanaticisms  and 
extravagances  of  doctrine  and  conduct  ?  How  look  they 
as  depicted  in  the  sermons  of  Dr.  South,  in  the  sarcastic 
pages  of  Hudibras,  and  the  coarse  caricatures  of  the  cleri 
cal  wits  of  the  times  of  the  second  Charles?  With  their 
own  backs  scored  and  their  ears  cropped  for  the  crime  of 
denying  the  divine  authority  of  church  and  state  in  Eng 
land,  were  they  the  men  to  whip  Baptists  and  hang 
Quakers  for  doing  the  same  thing  in  Massachusetts  ? 

Of  all  that  is  noble  and  true  in  the  Puritan  character 
we  are  sincere  admirers.  The  generous  and  self-denying 
apostleship  of  Eliot  is,  of  itself,  a  beautiful  page  in  their 
history.  The  physical  daring  and  hardihood  with  which, 
amidst  the  times  of  savage  warfare,  they  laid  the  founda 
tions  of  mighty  states,  and  subdued  the  rugged  soil,  and 
made  the  wilderness  blossom;  their  steadfast  adherence 
to  their  religious  principles,  even  when  the  restoration 
had  made  apostasy  easy  and  profitable ;  and  the  vigilance 
and  firmness  with  which,  under  all  circumstances,  they 
held  fast  their  chartered  liberties  and  extorted  new  rights 


EVANGELINE.  83 

and  privileges  from  the  reluctant  home  government, — 
justly  entitle  them  to  the  grateful  remembrance  of  a  gen 
eration  now  reaping  the  fruits  of  their  toils  and  sacrifices. 
But,  in  expressing  our  gratitude  to  the  founders  of  INew 
England,  we  should  not  forget  what  is  due  to  truth  and 
justice;  nor,  for  the  sake  of  vindicating  them  from  the 
charge  of  that  religious  intolerance  which,  at  the  time, 
they  shared  with  nearly  all  Christendom,  undertake  to 
defend,  in  the  light  of  the  nineteenth  century,  opinions 
and  practices  hostile  to  the  benignant  spirit  of  the  gos 
pel  and  subversive  of  the  inherent  rights  of  man. 


OF  TH* 

VERSITY 


A   CHAPTER   OF   HISTORY. 

THE  theory  which  a  grave  and  learned  northern 
senator  has  recently  announced  in  Congress,  that  slavery, 
like  the  cotton  plant,  is  confined  by  natural  laws  to  cer 
tain  parallels  of  latitude,  beyond  which  it  can  by  no  pos 
sibility  exist,  however  it  may  have  satisfied  its  author 
and  his  auditors,  has  unfortunately  no  verification  in  the 
facts  of  the  case.  Slavery  is  singularly  cosmopolitan  in 
its  habits.  The  offspring  of  pride,  and  lust,  and  avarice, 
it  is  indigenous  to  the  world.  Rooted  in  the  human 
heart,  it  defies  the  rigors  of  winter  in  the  steppes  of  Tar- 
tary  and  the  fierce  sun  of  the  tropics.  It  has  the  univer 
sal  acclimation  of  sin. 

The  first  account  we  have  of  negro  slaves  in  New 
England  is  from  the  pen  of  John  Josselyn.  Nineteen 
years  after  the  landing  at  Plymouth,  this  interesting 
traveller  was  for  some  time  the  guest  of  Samuel  Maver 
ick,  who  then  dwelt,  like  a  feudal  baron,  in  his  fortalice 
on  Noddle's  Island,  surrounded  by  retainers  and  servants, 
bidding  defiance  to  his  Indian  neighbors  behind  his  strong 

(84) 


A    CHAPTER    OF    HISTORY.  85 

walls,  with  "  four  great  guns  "  mounted  thereon,  and  "  giv 
ing  entertainment  to  all  new  comers  gratis." 

"On  the  2d  of  October,  1639,  about  nine  o'clock  in 
the  morning,  Mr.  Maverick's  negro  woman"  says  Josse- 
lyn,  "  came  to  my  chamber,  and  in  her  own  country  lan 
guage  and  tune  sang  very  loud  and  shrill.  Going  out  to 
her,  she  used  a  great  deal  of  respect  towards  me,  and 
would  willingly  have  expressed  her  grief  in  English  had 
she  been  able  to  speak  the  language ;  but  I  apprehended 
it  by  her  countenance  and  deportment.  Whereupon  I 
repaired  to  my  host  to  learn  of  him  the  cause,  and  re 
solved  to  entreat  him  in  her  behalf ;  for  I  had  understood 
that  she  was  a  queen  in  her  own  country,  and  observed 
a  very  dutiful  and  humble  garb  used  towards  her  by  an 
other  negro,  who  was  her  maid.  Mr.  Maverick  was  de 
sirous  to  have  a  breed  of  negroes  ;  and  therefore,  seeing 
she  would  not  yield  by  persuasions  to  company  with  a 
negro  young  man  he  had  in  his  house,  he  commanded 
him,  willed  she,  nilled  she,  to  go  to  her  bed,  which  was 
no  sooner  done  than  she  thrust  him  out  again.  This  she 
took  in  high  disdain  beyond  her  slavery ;  and  this  was 
the  cause  of  her  grief." 

That  the  peculiar  domestic  arrangements  and  unfas- 
tidious  economy  of  this  slave-breeding  settler  were  not 
countenanced  by  the  Puritans  of  that  early  time,  we  have 
sufficient  evidence.  It  is  but  fair  to  suppose,  from  the 


86  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

silence  of  all  other  writers  of  the  time  with  respect  to 
negroes  and  slaves,  that  this  case  was  a  marked  exception 
to  the  general  habits  and  usage  of  the  colonists.  At  an 
early  period  a  traffic  was  commenced  between  the  New 
England  colonies  and  that  of  Barbadoes ;  and  it  is  not 
improbable  that  slaves  were  brought  to  Boston  from  that 
island.  The  laws,  however,  discouraged  their  introduc 
tion  and  purchase,  giving  freedom  to  all  held  to  service 
at  the  close  of  seven  years. 

In  1641,  two  years  after  Josselyn's  adventure  on  Nod 
dle's  Island,  the  code  of  laws  known  by  the  name  of  the 
Body  of  Liberties  was  adopted  by  the  colony.  It  was 
drawn  up  by  Nathaniel  Ward,- the  learned  and  ingenious 
author  of  the  Simple  Cobbler  of  Agawam,  the  earliest 
poetical  satire  of  New  England.  One  of  its  provisions 
was  as  follows  :  — 

"  There  shall  be  never  any  bond  slaverie,  villianage, 
or  captivitie  amongst  us,  unles  it  be  lawfull  captives  taken 
in  just  warres  and  such  strangers  as  willingly  sell  them 
selves  or  are  sold  to  us.  And  these  shall  have  all  the 
liberties  and  Christian  usages  which  the  law  of  God  es 
tablished  in  Israel  doth  morally  require." 

In  1646  Captain  Smith,  a  Boston  church  member,  in 
connection  with  one  Keeser,  brought  home  two  negroes 
whom  he  obtained  by  the  surprise  and  burning  of  a 
negro  village  in  Africa  and  the  massacre  of  many  of  its 


A    CHAPTER    OF    HISTORY.  87 

inhabitants.  Sir  Richard  Saltonstall,  one  of  the  assist 
ants,  presented  a  petition  to  the  general  court,  stating 
the  outrage  thereby  committed  as  threefold  in  its  nature 
—  viz.,  murder,  man  stealing,  and  Sabbath  breaking  ;  inas 
much  as  the  offence  of  "chasing  the  negers,  as  afore- 
sayde,  upon  the  Sabbath  day,  (being  a  servile  work,  and 
such  as  cannot  be  considered  under  any  other  head,)  is 
expressly  capital  by  the  law  of  God  ; "  for  which  reason 
he  prays  that  the  offenders  may  be  brought  to  justice, 
"  soe  that  the  sin  they  have  committed  may  be  upon  their 
own  heads  and  not  upon  ourselves." 

Upon  this  petition  the  general  court  passed  the  fol 
lowing  order,  eminently  worthy  of  men  professing  to  rule 
in  the  fear  and  according  to  the  law  of  God  —  a  terror 
to  evil  doers,  and  a  praise  to  them  that  do  well :  — 

"  The  general  court,  conceiving  themselves  bound  by 
the  first  opportunity  to  bear  witness  against  the  heinous 
and  crying  sin  of  man  stealing,  as  also  to  prescribe  such 
timely  redress  for  what  has  passed,  and  such  a  law  for 
the  future  as  may  sufficiently  deter  all  others  belonging 
to  us  to  have  to  do  in  such  vile  and  odious  courses,  justly 
abhorred  of  all  good  and  just  men,  do  order  that  the  negro 
interpreter  and  others  unlawfully  taken  be  by  the  first 
opportunity,  at  the  charge  of  the  country  for  the  present, 
sent  to  his  native  country,  Guinea,  and  a  letter  with  him 
of  the  indignation  of  the  court  thereabout  and  justice 


88  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

thereof,  desiring  our  honored  governor  would  please  put 
this  order  in  execution." 

There  is,  so  far  as  we  know,  no  historical  Tecord  of 
the  actual  return  of  these  stolen  men  to  their  home.  A 
letter  is  extant,  however,  addressed  in  behalf  of  the  gen 
eral  court  to  a  Mr.  Williams  on  the  Piscataqua,  by 
whom  one  of  the  negroes  had  been  purchased,  requesting 
him  to  send  the  man  forthwith  to  Boston,  that  he  may 
be  sent  home,  "  which  this  court  do  resolve  to  send  back 
without  delay." 

Three  years  after,  in  1649,  the  following  law  was 
placed  upon  the  statute  book  of  the  Massachusetts  col 
ony : — 

"  If  any  man  stealeth  a  man,  or  mankind,  he  shall 
surely  be  put  to  death." 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  these  early  attempts  to  introduce 
slavery  into  New  England  were  opposed  by  severe  laws 
and  by  that  strong  popular  sentiment  in  favor  of  human 
liberty  which  characterized  the  Christian  radicals  who 
laid  the  foundations  of  the  colonies.  It  was  not  the  rigor 
of  her  northern  winter,  nor  the  unkindly  soil  of  Massa 
chusetts,  which  discouraged  the  introduction  of  slavery 
in  the  first  half  century  of  her  existence  as  a  colony.  It 
was  the  Puritan's  recognition  of  the  brotherhood  of  man 
in  sin,  suffering,  and  redemption,  —  his  estimate  of  the 
awful  responsibilities  and  eternal  destinies  of  humanity, 


A    CHAPTER    OF    HISTORY.  80 

his  hatred  of  wrong  and  tyranny,  and  his  stern  sense  of 
justice,  —  which  led  him  to  impose  upon  the  African  slave 
trader  the  terrible  penalty  of  the  Mosaic  code. 

But  that  brave  old  generation  passed  away.  The  civil 
contentions  in  the  mother  country  drove  across  the  seas 
multitudes  of  restless  adventurers  and  speculators.  The 
Indian  wars  unsettled  and  demoralized  the  people.  Hab 
its  of  luxury  and  the  greed  of  gain  took  the  place  of  the 
severe  self-denial  and  rigid  virtues  of  the  fathers.  Hence 
we  are  not  surprised  to  find  that  Josselyn,  in  his  second 
visit  to  New  England,  some  twenty-five  years  after  his 
first,  speaks  of  the  great  increase  of  servants  and  negroes. 
In  1680  Governor  Bradstreet,  in  answer  to  the  inquiries 
of  his  majesty's  privy  council,  states  that,  two  years  be 
fore,  a  vessel  from  "  Madagasca  "  brought  into  the  colony 
betwixt  forty  and  fifty  negroes,  mostly  women  and  chil 
dren,  who  were  sold  at  a  loss  to  the  owner  of  the  vessel. 
"  Now  and  then,"  he  continues,  "  two  or  three  negroes 
are  brought  from  Barbadoes  and  other  of  his  majesty's 
plantations  and  sold  for  twenty  pounds  apiece;  so  that 
there  may  be  within  the  government  about  one  hundred 
or  one  hundred  and  twenty,  and  it  may  be  as  many 
Scots,  brought  hither  and  sold  for  servants  in  the  time 
of  the  war  with  Scotland,  and  about  half  as  many 
Irish." 

The  owning  of  a  black  or  white  slave,  or  servant,  at  this 


90  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

period  was  regarded  as  an  evidence  of  dignity  and  respect 
ability  ;  and  hence  magistrates  and  clergymen  winked  at 
the  violation  of  the  law  by  the  mercenary  traders,  and 
supplied  themselves  without  scruple.  Indian  slaves  were 
common,  and  are  named  'in  old  wills,  deeds,  and  invento 
ries,  with  horses,  cows,  and  household  furniture.  As  early 
as  the  year  1649  we  find  "William  Hilton,  of  Newbury, 
sells  to  George  Carr,  "  for  one  quarter  part  of  a  vessel, 
James,  my  Indian,  with  all  the  interest  I  have  in  him,  to 
be  his  servant  forever."  Some  were  taken  in  the  Narra- 
gansett  war  and  other  Indian  wars ;  others  were  brought 
from  South  Carolina  and  the  Spanish  Main.  It  is  an  in 
structive  fact,  as  illustrating  the  retributive  dealings  of 
Providence,  that  the  direst  affliction  of  the  Massachusetts 
colony  —  the  witchcraft  terror  of  1692  —  originated  with 
the  Indian  Tituba,  a  slave  in  the  family  of  the  minister 
of  Danvers. 

In  the  year  1690  the  inhabitants  of  Newbury  were 
greatly  excited  by  the  arrest  of  a  Jerseyman  who  had  been 
engaged  in  enticing  Indians  and  negroes  to  leave  their 
masters.  He  was  charged  before  the  court  with  saying 
that  "  the  English  should  be  cut  off  and  the  negroes  set 
free."  James,  a  negro  slave,  and  Joseph,  an  Indian,  were 
arrested  with  him.  Their  design  was  reported  to  be,  to 
seize  a  vessel  in  the  port  and  escape  to  Canada  and  join 
the  French,  and  return  and  lay  waste  and  plunder  their 


A    CHAPTER    OF    HISTORY.  91 

masters.  They  were  to  come  back  with  five  hundred 
Indians  and  three  hundred  Canadians ;  and  the  place  of 
crossing  the  Merrimack  River,  and  of  the  first  encampment 
on  the  other  side,  were  even  said  to  be  fixed  upon.  ^Yhen 
we  consider  that  there  could  not  have  been  more  than  a 
score  of  slaves  in  the  settlement,  the  excitement  into  which 
the  inhabitants  were  thrown  by  this  absurd  rumor  of 
conspiracy  seems  not  very  unlike  that  of  a  convocation  of 
small  planters  in  a  backwoods  settlement  in  South  Caro 
lina  on  finding  an  antislavery  newspaper  in  their  weekly 
mail  bag. 

In  1709  Colonel  Saltonstall,  of  Haverhill,  had  several 
negroes,  and  among  them  a  high-spirited  girl,  who,  for 
some  alleged  misdemeanor,  was  severely  chastised.  The 
slave  resolved  upon  revenge  for  her  injury,  and  soon  found 
the  means  of  obtaining  it.  The  colonel  had  on  hand,  for 
service  in  the  Indian  war  then  raging,  a  considerable  store 
of  gunpowder.  This  she  placed  under  the  room  in  which 
her  master  and  mistress  slept,  laid  a  long  train,  and 
dropped  a  coal  on  it.  She  had  barely  time  to  escape  to 
the  farm  house  before  the  explosion  took  place,  shattering 
the  stately  mansion  into  fragments.  Saltonstall  and  his 
wife  were  carried  on  their  bed  a  considerable  distance, 
happily  escaping  serious  injury.  Some  soldiers  stationed 
in  the  house  were  scattered  in  all  directions ;  but  no  lives 
were  lost.  The  colonel,  on  recovering  from  the  effects 


92  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

of  his  sudden  overturn,  hastened  to  the  farm  house  and 
found  his  servants  all  up  save  the  author  of  the  mischief, 
who  was  snug  in  bed  and  apparently  in  a  quiet  sleep. 

In  1701  an  attempt  was  made  in  the  general  court  of 
Massachusetts  to  prevent  the  increase  of  slaves.  Judge 
Sewall  soon  after  published  a  pamphlet  against  slavery, 
but,  it  seems  with  little  effect.  Boston  merchants  and  ship 
owners  became  to  a  considerable  extent  involved  in  the 
slave  trade.  Distilleries  established  in  that  place  and  in 
Rhode  Island  furnished  rum  for  the  African  market.  The 
slaves  were  usually  taken  to  the  West  Indies ;  although 
occasionally  part  of  a  cargo  found  its  way  to  New  Eng 
land,  where  the  wholesome  old  laws  against  man  stealing 
had  become  a  dead  letter  on  the  statute  book. 

In  1767  a  bill  was  brought  before  the  legislature  of 
Massachusetts  to  prevent  "  the  unwarrantable  and  unr 
natural  custom  of  enslaving  mankind."  The  council  of 
Governor  Bernard  sent  it  back  to  the  house  greatly 
changed  and  curtailed,  and  it  was  lost  by  the  disagree 
ment  of  the  two  branches.  Governor  Bernard  threw  his 
influence  on  the  side  of  slavery.  In  1774  a  bill  pro 
hibiting  the  traffic  in  slaves  passed  both  houses  ;  but  Gov 
ernor  Hutchinson  withheld  his  assent  and  dismissed  the 
legislature.  The  colored  men  sent  a  deputation  of  their 
own  to  the  governor  to  solicit  his  consent  to  the  bill ;  but 
he  told  them  his  instructions  forbade  him.  A  similar 


A    CHAPTER    OF    HISTORY.  •         93 

committee  waiting  upon  General  Gage  received  the  same 
answer. 

In  the  year  1770  a  servant  of  Richard  Lechmere,  of 
Cambridge,  stimulated  by  the  general  discussion  of  the 
slavery  question  and  by  the  advice  of  some  of  the  zealous 
advocates  of  emancipation,  brought  an  action  against  his 
master  for  detaining  him  in  bondage.  The  suit  was 
decided  in  his  favor  two  years  before  the  similar  decision 
in  the  case  of  Somerset  in  England.  The  funds  necessary 
for  carrying  on  this  suit  were  raised  among  the  blacks 
themselves.  Other  suits  followed  in  various  parts  of  the 
province  ;  and  the  result  was,  in  every  instance,  the  freedom 
of  the  plaintiff.  In  1773  Ca?sar  Hendrick  sued  his  mas 
ter,  one  Greenleaf,  of  Newburyport,  for  damages,  laid  at 
fifty  pounds,  for  holding  him  as  a  slave.  The  jury 
awarded  him  his  freedom  and  eighteen  pounds. 

According  to  Dr.  Belknap,  whose  answer  to  the  queries 
on  the  subject,  propounded  by  Judge  Tucker,  of  Virginia, 
have  furnished  us  with  many  of  the  facts  above  stated,  the 
principal  grounds  upon  which  the  counsel  of  the  masters 
depended  wer.e,  that  the  negroes  were  purchased  in  open 
market,  and  included  in  the  bills  of  sale  like  other  prop 
erty  ;  that  slavery  was  sanctioned  by  usage ;  and,  finally, 
that  the  laws  of  the  province  recognized  its  existence  by 
making  masters  liable  for  the  maintenance  of  their  slaves, 
or  servants. 


94  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

On  the  part  of  the  blacks,  the  law  and  usage  of  the 
mother  country,  confirmed  by  the  great  charter,  that  no 
man  can  be  deprived  of  his  liberty  but  by  the  judgment 
of  his  peers,  were  effectually  pleaded.  The  early  laws  of 
the  province  prohibited  slavery,  and  no  subsequent  legis 
lation  had  sanctioned  it ;  for,  although  the  laws  did  recog 
nize  its  existence,  they  did  so  only  to  mitigate  and  modify 
an  admitted  evil. 

The  present  state  constitution  was  established  in  1780. 
The  first  article  of  the  Bill  of  Rights  prohibited  slavery 
by  affirming  the  foundation  truth  of  our  republic,  that  "  all 
men  are  born  free  and  equal."  The  supreme  court  de 
cided  in  1783  that  no  man  could  hold  another  as  property 
without  a  direct  violation  of  that  article. 

In  1788  three  free  black  citizens  of  Boston  were  kid 
napped  and  sold  into  slavery  in  one  of  the  French  islands. 
An  intense  excitement  followed.  Governor  Hancock  took 
efficient  measures  for  reclaiming  the  unfortunate  men. 
The  clergy  of  Boston  petitioned  the  legislature  for  a  total 
prohibition  of  the  foreign  slave  trade.  The  society  of 
Friends,  and  the  blacks  generally,  presented  similar  pe 
titions  ;  and  the  same  year  an  act  was  passed  prohibiting 
the  slave  trade  and  granting  relief  to  persons  kidnapped 
or  decoyed  out  of  the  commonwealth.  The  fear  of  a 
burden  to  the  state  from  the  influx  of  negroes  from  abroad 
led  the  legislature,  in  connection  with  this  law,  to  prevent 


A    CHAPTER    OF    HISTORY.  95 

those  who  were  not  citizens  of  the  state  or  of  other  states 
from  gaining  a  residence. 

The  first  case  of  the  arrest  of  a  fugitive  slave  in 
Massachusetts  under  the  law  of  1793  took  place  in 
Boston  soon  after  the  passage  of  the  law.  It  is  the  case 
to  which  President  Quincy  alludes  in  his  late  letter 
against  the  fugitive  slave  law.  The  populace  at  the 
trial  aided  the  slave  to  escape,  and  nothing  further  was 
done  about  it, 

The  arrest  of  George  Latimer  as  a  slave  in  Boston,  and 
his  illegal  confinement  in  jail,  in  1842,  led  to  the  passage 
of  the  law  of  1843  for  the  "protection  of  personal  lib 
erty,"  prohibiting  state  officers  from  arresting  or  detain 
ing  persons  claimed  as  slaves,  and  the  use  of  the  jails  of 
the  commonwealth  for  their  confinement.  This  law  was 
strictly  in  accordance  with  the  decision  of  the  supreme 
judiciary  in  the  case  of  Prigg  vs.  The  State  of  Pennsyl 
vania,  that  the  reclaiming  of  fugitives  was  a  matter  exclu 
sively  belonging  to  the  general  government ;  yet  that  the 
state  officials  might,  if  they  saw  fit,  carry  into  effect  the 
law  of  Congress  on  the  subject,  "unless  prohibited  by 
state  legislation." 

It  will  be  seen  by  the  facts  we  have  adduced  that 
slavery  in  Massachusetts  never  had  a  legal  existence. 
The  ermine  of  the  judiciary  of  the  Puritan  state  has  never 
been  sullied  by  the  admission  of  its  detestable  claims.  It 


96  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

crept  into  the  commonwealth  like  other  evils  and  vices, 
but  never  succeeded  in  clothing  itself  with  the  sanction 
and  authority  of  law.  It  stood  only  upon  its  own  execra 
ble  foundation  of  robbery  and  wrong. 

With  a  history  like  this  to  look  back  upon,  is  it  strange 
that  the  people  of  Massachusetts  at  the  present  day  are 
unwilling  to  see  their  time-honored  defences  of  personal 
freedom,  the  good  old  safeguards  of  Saxon  liberty,  over 
ridden  and  swept  away  after  the  summary  fashion  of  "  the 
fugitive  slave  bill ; "  that  they  should  loathe  and  scorn 
the  task  which  that  bill  imposes  upon  them  of  aiding 
professional  slave  hunters  in  seizing,  fettering,  and  con 
signing  to  bondage  men  and  women  accused  only  of  that 
which  commends  them  to  esteem  and  sympathy,  love 
of  liberty  and  hatred  of  slavery ;  that  they  cannot  at 
once  adjust  themselves  to  "constitutional  duties"  which 
in  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  are  reserved  for  trained 
bloodhounds  ?  Surely,  in  view  of  what  Massachusetts 
has  been,  and  her  strong  bias  in  favor  of  human  freedom, 
derived  from  her  greathearted  founders,  it  is  to  be  hoped 
that  the  executive  and  cabinet  at  Washington  will  grant 
her  some  little  respite,  some  space  for  turning,  some 
opportunity  for  conquering  her  prejudices  before  letting 
loose  the  dogs  of  war  upon  her.  Let  them  give  her 
time,  and  treat  with  forbearance  her  hesitation,  qualms  of 
conscience,  and  wounded  pride.  Her  people,  indeed,  are 


A    CHAPTER    OF    HISTORY.  97 

awkward  in  the  work  of  slave  catching,  and,  it  would 
seem,  rendered  but  indifferent  service  in  a  late  hunt  in 
Boston.  Whether  they  would  do  better  under  the  sur 
veillance  of  the  army  and  navy  of  the  United  States, 
is  a  question  which  we  leave  with  the  president  and  his 
secretary  of  state.  General  Putnam  once  undertook  to 
drill  a  company  of  Quakers,  and  instruct  them,  by  force 
of  arms,  in  the  art  and  mystery  of  fighting ;  but  not  a 
single  pair  of  drab-colored  breeches  moved  at  his  "for 
ward  march ; "  not  a  broad  beaver  wheeled  at  his  word 
of  command;  no  hand  unclosed  to  receive  a  proffered 
musket.  Patriotic  appeal,  hard  swearing,  and  prick,  of 
bayonet  had  no  effect  upon  these  impracticable  raw  re 
cruits;  and  the  stout  general  gave  them  up  in  despair. 
We  are  inclined  to  believe  that  any  attempt  on,  the  part 
of  the  Commander-in-chief  of  our  army  and  navy  to  con 
vert  the  good  people  of  Massachusetts  into  expert  slave 
catchers,  under  the  discipline  of  West  Point  and  Norfolk, 
would  prove  as  idle  an  experiment  as  that  of  Genera! 
Putnam  upon  the  Quakers. 
7 


FAME  AND   GLORY.* 

THE  learned  and  eloquent  author  of  the  pamphlet  lying 
before  us  with  the  above  title  belongs  to  a  class,  happily 
on  the  increase  in  our  country,  who  venture  to  do  homage 
to  unpopular  truths  in  defiance  of  the  social  and  politi 
cal  tyranny  of  opinion  which  has  made  so  many  of  our 
statesmen,  orators,  and  divines  the  mere  playthings  and 
shuttlecocks  of  popular  impulses  for  evil  far  oftener  than 
for  good.  His  first  production,  the  True  Grandeur  of 
Nations,  written  for  the  anniversary  of  American  inde 
pendence,  was  not  more  remarkable  for  its  evidences  of  a 
highly  cultivated  taste  and  wide  historical  research  than 
for  its  inculcation  of  a  high  morality  —  the  demand  for 
practical  Christianity  in  nations  as  well  as  individuals. 
It  burned  no  incense  under  the  nostrils  of  an  already  in 
flated  and  vain  people.  It  gratified  them  by  no  rhetorical 
falsehoods  about  "  the  land  of  the  free  and  the  home  of 
the  brave."  It  did  not  apostrophize  military  heroes,  nor 

*  An  address  before  the  Literary  Society  of  Amherst  College,  by 

Charles  Sumner. 

(98) 


• 


FAME    AND    GLORY.  99 


strut  "  red  wat  shod  "  over  the  plains  of  battle,  nor  call 
up,  like  another  Ezekiel,  from  the  valley  of  vision  the 
dry  bones  thereof.  It  uttered  none  of  the  precious 
scoundrel  cant,  so  much  in  vogue  after  the  annexation  of 
Texas  was  determined  upon,  about  the  destiny  of  the 
United  States  to  enter  in  and  possess  the  lands  of  all 
whose  destiny  it  is  to  live  next  us,  and  to  plant  every 
where  the  "  peculiar  institutions  "  of  a  peculiarly  Chris 
tian  and  chosen  people,  the  land-stealing  propensity  of 
whose  progressive  republicanism  is  declared  to  be  in  ac 
cordance  with  the  will  and  by  the  grace  of  God,  and 
who,  like  the  Scotch  freebooter, — 

"  Pattering  an  Ave  Mary 
"When  he  rode  on  a  border  forray,"  — 

while  trampling  on  the  rights  of  a  sister  republic,  and  re 
creating  slavery  where  that  republic  had  abolished  it,  talk 
piously  of  "  the  designs  of  Providence  "  and  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  instrumentalities  thereof  in  "extending  the  area 
of  freedom."  On  the  contrary,  the  author  portrayed  the 
evils  of  war  and  proved  its  incompatibility  with  Christian 
ity  —  contrasting  with  its  ghastly  triumphs  the  mild  victo 
ries  of  peace  and  love.  Our  true  mission,  he  taught,  was 
not  to  act  over  in  the  new  world  the  barbarous  game  which 
has  desolated  the  old ;  but  to  offer  to  the  nations  of  the 
earth  —  warring  and  discordant,  oppressed  and  oppress- 


100  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

ing  —  the  beautiful  example  of  a  free  and  happy  people 
studying  the  things  which  make  for  peace  —  democracy 
and  Christianity  walking  hand  in  hand,  blessing  and  being 
blessed. 

His  next  public  effort  —  an  address  before  the  Literary 
Society  of  his  alma  mater  —  was  in  the  same  vein.  He 
improved  the  occasion  of  the  recent  death  of  four  distin 
guished  members  of  that  fraternity  to  delineate  his  beauti 
ful  ideal  of  the  jurist,  the  scholar,  the  artist,  and  the  phi 
lanthropist,  aided  by  the  models  furnished  by  the  lives  of 
such  men  as  Pickering,  Story,  Allston,  and  Channing. 
Here,  also,  he  makes  greatness  to  consist  of  goodness : 
war  and  slavery  and  all  their  offspring  of  evil  are  sur 
veyed  in  the  light  of  the  morality  of  the  New  Testament. 
He  looks  hopefully  forward  to  the  coming  of  that  day  when 
the  sword  shall  devour  no  longer,  when  labor  shall  grind 
no  longer  in  the  prison  house,  and  the  peace  and  freedom 
of  a  realized  and  acted-out  Christianity  shall  overspread 
the  earth,  and  the  golden  age  predicted  by  the  seers  and 
poets  alike  of  paganism  and  Christianity  shall  become  a 
reality. 

The  address  now  before  us,  with  the  same  general 
object  in  view,  is  more  direct  and  practical.  We  can 
scarcely  conceive  of  a  discourse  better  adapted  to  prepare 
the  young  American,  just  issuing  from  his  collegiate  re 
tirement,  for  the  duties  and  responsibilities  of  citizenship. 


FAME    AND    GLORY.  101 

It  treats  the  desire  of  fame  and  honor  as  one  native  to 
the  human  heart,  felt  to  a  certain  extent  by  all  as  a  part 
of  our  common  being  —  a  motive,  although  by  no  means 
the  most  exalted,  of  human  conduct ;  and  the  lesson  it 
would  inculcate  is,  that  no  true  and  permanent  fame  can 
be  founded  except  in  labors  which  promote  the  happiness 
of  mankind.  To  use  the  language  of  Dr.  South,  "  God 
is  the  fountain  of  honor ;  the  conduit  by  which  he  con 
veys  it  to  the  sons  of  men  are  virtuous  and  generous 
practices."  The  author  presents  the  beautiful  examples 
of  St.  Pierre,  Milton,  Howard,  and  Clarkson — -men  whose 
fame  rests  on  the  firm  foundation  of  goodness  —  for  the 
study  and  imitation  of  the  young  candidate  for  that  true 
glory  which  belongs  to  those  who  live,  not  for  themselves, 
but  for  their  race.  "  Neither  present  fame,  nor  war,  nor 
power,  nor  wealth,  nor  knowledge  alone  shall  secure  an 
entrance  to  the  true  and  noble  Valhalla.  There  shall  be 
gathered  only  those  who  have  toiled  each  in  his  vocation 
for  the  welfare  of  others."  "  Justice  and  benevolence  are 
higher  than  knowledge  and  power.  It  is  by  his  goodness 
that  God  is  most  truly  known ;  so  also  is  the  great  man. 
When  Moses  said  to  the  Lord,  Show  me  thy  glory,  the 
the  Lord  said,  I  will  make  all  my  goodness  pass  before 
thee." 

"We  copy  the  closing  paragraph  of  the  address,  the 
inspiring  sentiment  of  which  will  find  a  response  in  all 
generous  and  hopeful  hearts :  — 


102  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

"  Let  us  reverse  the  very  poles  of  the  worship  of  past 
ages.  Men  have  thus  far  bowed  down  before  stocks, 
stones,  insects,  crocodiles,  golden  calves  —  graven  images, 
often  of  cunning  workmanship,  wrought  with  Phidian 
skill,  of  ivory,  of  ebony,  of  marble,  but  all  false  gods. 
Let  them  worship  in  future  the  true  God,  our  Father, 
as  he  is  in  heaven  and  in  the  beneficent  labors  of  his 
children  on  earth.  Then  farewell  to  the  siren  song 
of  a  worldly  ambition  !  Farewell  to  the  vain  desire  of 
mere  literary  success  or  oratorical  display  !  Farewell  to 
the  distempered  longings  for  office  !  Farewell  to  the  dis 
mal,  bloodred  phantom  of  martial  renown !  Fame  and 
glory  may  then  continue,  as  in  times  past,  the  reflection 
of  public  opinion ;  but  of  an  opinion  sure  and  steadfast, 
without  change  or  fickleness,  enlightened  by  those  two 
suns  of  Christian  truth  —  love  to  God  and  love  to  man. 
From  the  serene  illumination  of  these  duties  all  the  forms 
of  selfishness  shall  retreat  like  evil  spirits  at  the  dawn 
of  day.  Then  shall  the  happiness  of  the  poor  and  lowly 
and  the  education  of  the  ignorant  have  uncounted  friends. 
The  cause  of  those  who  are  in  prison  shall  find  fresh 
voices ;  the  majesty  of  peace  other  vindicators ;  the  suf 
ferings  of  the  slave  new  and  gushing  floods  of  sympathy. 
Then,  at  last,  shall  the  brotherhood  of  mankind  stand  con 
fessed  ;  ever  filling  the  souls  of  all  with  a  more  generous 
life ;  ever  prompting  to  deeds  of  beneficence ;  conquer- 


FAME    AND    GLORY.  103 

ing  the  heathen  prejudices  of  country,  color,  and  race  ; 
guiding  the  judgment  of  the  historian  ;  animating  the 
verse  of  the  poet  and  the  eloquence  of  the  orator ;  enno 
bling  human  thought  and  conduct ;  and  inspiring  those 
good  works  by  which  alone  we  may  attain  to  the  heights 
of  true  glory.  Good  works !  Such  even  now  is  the 
heavenly  ladder  on  which  angels  are  ascending  and  de 
scending,  while  weary  humanity,  on  pillows  of  stone, 
slumbers  heavily  at  its  feet." 

"We  know  how  easy  it  is  to  sneer  at  such  anticipations 
of  a  better  future  as  baseless  and  visionary.  The  shrewd 
but  narrow-eyed  man  of  the  world  laughs  at  the  sugges 
tion  that  there  can  be  any  stronger  motive  than  selfish 
ness,  any  higher  morality  than  that  of  the  broker's 
board.  The  man  who  relies  for  salvation  from  the  con 
sequences  of  an  evil  and  selfish  life  upon  the  verbal  or 
thodoxy  of  a  creed,  presents  the  depravity  and  weakness 
of  human  nature  as  insuperable  obstacles  in  the  way  of 
the  general  amelioration  of  the  condition  of  a  world  lying 
in  wickedness.  He  counts  it  heretical  and  dangerous  to 
act  upon  the  supposition  that  the  same  human  nature 
which,  in  his  own  case  and  that  of  his  associates,  can  con 
front  all  perils,  overcome  all  obstacles,  and  outstrip  the 
whirlwind  in  the  pursuit  of  gain,  —  which  makes  the 
strong  elements  its  servants,  taming  and  subjugating  the 
very  lightnings  of  heaven  to  work  out  its  own  purposes 


104  RECREATIONS   AND    MISCELLANIES. 

of  self-aggrandizement,  —  must  necessarily  and  by  an  or 
dination  of  Providence  become  weak  as  water  when  en 
gaged  in  works  of  love  and  good  will,  looking  for  the 
coming  of  a  better  day  for  humanity,  with  faith  in  the 
promises  of  the  gospel,  and  relying  upon  Him,  who  in  call 
ing  man  to  the  great  task  field  of  duty,  has  not  mocked 
him  with  the  mournful  necessity  of  laboring  in  vain. 
We  have  been  pained  more  than  words  can  express  to 
see  young,  generous  hearts,  yearning  with  strong  desires 
to  consecrate  themselves  to  the  cause  of  their  fellow-men, 
checked  and  chilled  by  the  ridicule  of  worldly-wise  con 
servatism  and  the  solemn  rebukes  of  practical  infidelity 
in  the  guise  of  a  piety  which  professes  to  love  the  unseen 
Father  while  disregarding  the  claims  of  his  visible  chil 
dren.  Visionary !  Were  not  the  good  St.  Pierre,  and 
Fenelon,  and  Howard,  and  Clarkson  visionaries  also  ? 

What  was  John  Woolman,  to  the  wise  and  prudent  of 
his  day,  but  an  amiable  enthusiast  ?  What  to  those  of 
our  own  is  such  an  angel  of  mercy  as  Dorothea  Dix  ? 
Who  will  not,  in  view  of  the  labors  of  such  philanthro 
pists,  adopt  the  language  of  Jonathan  Edwards  :  "  If  these 
things  be  enthusiasms  and  the  fruits  of  a  distempered 
brain,  let  my  brain  be  evermore  possessed  with  this  happy 
distemper  "  ? 

It  must,  however,  be  confessed  that  there  is  a  cant  of 
philanthrophy  too  general  and  abstract  for  any  practical 


FAME    AND    GLORY.  105 

purpose,  —  a  morbid  sentimentalism,  —  which  contents  it 
self  with  whining  over  real  or  imaginary  present  evil  and 
predicting  a  better  state  somewhere  in  the  future,  but 
really  doing  nothing  to  remove  the  one  or  hasten  the 
coming  of  the  other.  To  its  view  the  present  condition 
of  things  is  all  wrong;  no  green  hillock  or  twig  rises 
over  the  waste  deluge  ;  the  heaven  above  is  utterly  dark 
and  starless :  yet  somehow  out  of  this  darkness  which 
may  be  felt  the  light  is  to  burst  forth  miraculously ; 
wrong,  sin,  pain,  and  sorrow  are  to  be  banished  from  the 
renovated  world,  and  earth  become  a  vast  epicurean  gar 
den  or  Mahometan  heaven. 

"  The  land,  unploughed,  shall  yield  her  crop  ; 
Pure  honey  from  the  oak  shall  drop ; 

The  fountain  shall  run  milk  ; 
The  thistle  shall  the  lily  bear  ; 
And  every  bramble  roses  wear, 

And  every  worm  make  silk."  * 

There  are,  in  short,  perfectionist  reformers  as  well  as 
religionists,  who  wait  to  see  the  salvation  which  it  is  the 
task  of  humanity  itself  to  work  out,  and  who  look  down 
from  a  region  of  ineffable  self-complacence  on  their  dusty 
and  toiling  brethren  who  are  resolutely  doing  whatsoever 
their  hands  find  to  do  for  the  removal  of  the  evils  around 
them. 

*  Ben  Jonson's  Golden  Age  Restored. 


106  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

The  emblem  of  practical  Christianity  is  the  Samaritan 
stooping  over  the  wounded  Jew.  No  fastidious  hand  can 
lift  from  the  dust  fallen  humanity  and  bind  up  its  unsight 
ly  gashes.  Sentimental  lamentation  over  evil  and  suf 
fering  may  be  indulged  in  until  it  becomes  a. sort  of  mel 
ancholy  luxury,  like  the  "weeping  for  Thammuz"  by  the 
apostate  daughters  of  Jerusalem.  Our  faith  in  a  better 
day  for  the  race  is  strong ;  but  we  feel  quite  sure  it  will 
come  in  spite  of  such  abstract  reformers,  and  not  by  reason 
of  them.  The  evils  which  possess  humanity  are  of  a  kind 
which  go  not  out  by  their  delicate  appliances. 

The  author  of  the  address  under  consideration  is  not  of 
this  class.  He  has  boldly,  and  at  no  small  cost,  grappled 
with  the  great  social  and  political  wrong  of  our  country  — 
chattel  slavery.  Looking,  as  we  have  seen,  hopefully  to 
the  future,  he  is  nevertheless  one  of  those  who  can  re 
spond  to  the  words  of  a  true  poet  and  true  man :  — 

"  He  is  a  coward  who  would  borrow 

A  charm  against  the  present  sorrow 
From  the  vague  future's  promise  of  delight ; 
As  life's  alarums  nearer  roll, 
The  ancestral  buckler  calls, 
Self-clanging,  from  the  walls 
In  the  high  temple  of  the  soul !  "  * 

*  Russell  Lowell. 


FANATICISM. 

THERE  are  occasionally  deeds  committed  almost  too 
horrible  and  revolting  for  publication.  The  tongue  falters 
in  giving  them  utterance ;  the  pen  trembles  that  records 
them.  Such  is  the  ghastly  horror  of  a  late  tragedy  in 
Edgecomb,  in  the  State  of  Maine.  A  respectable  and 
thriving  citizen  and  his  wife  had  been  for  some  years 
very  unprofitably  engaged  in  brooding  over  the  mysteries 
of  the  Apocalypse  and  in  speculations  upon  the  personal 
coming  of  Christ  and  the  temporal  reign  of  the  saints 
on  earth  —  a  sort  of  Mahometan  paradise,  which  has  as 
little  warrant  in  Scripture  as  in  reason.  Their  minds  of 
necessity  became  unsettled  ;  they  meditated  self-destruc 
tion  ;  and,  as  it  appears  by  a  paper  left  behind  in  the 
handwriting  of  both,  came  to  an  agreement  that  the  hus 
band  should  first  kill  his  wife  and  their  four  children  and 
then  put  an  end  to  his  own  existence.  This  was  literally 
executed  —  the  miserable  man  striking  off  the  heads  of  his 
wife  and  children  with  his  axe  and  then  cutting  his  own 
throat. 

(107) 


108  RECREATIONS   AND    MISCELLANIES. 

Alas  for  man  when  he  turns  from  the  light  of  reason 
and  from  the  simple  and  clearly  defined  duties  of  the 
present  life  and  undertakes  to  pry  into  the  mysteries  of 
the  future,  bewildering  himself  with  uncertain  and  vague 
prophecies,  Oriental  imagery  and  obscure  Hebrew  texts  ! 
Simple,  cheerful  faith  in  God  as  our  great  and  good 
Father,  and  love  of  his  children  as  our  own  brethren,  acted 
out  in  all  relations  and  duties,  is  certainly  best  for  this 
world,  and  we  believe  also  the  best  preparation  for  that  to 
come.  Once  possessed  by  the  falsity  that  God's  design 
is  that  man  should  be  wretched  and  gloomy  here  in  order 
to  obtain  rest  and  happiness  hereafter;  that  the  mental 
agonies  and  bodily  tortures  of  his  creatures  are  pleasant 
to  him;  that,  after  bestowing  upon  us  reason  for  our 
guidance,  he  makes  it  of  no  avail  by  interposing  contra 
dictory  revelations  and  arbitrary  commands,  —  there  is 
nothing  to  prevent  one  of  a  melancholic  and  excitable 
temperament  from  excesses  so  horrible  as  almost  to  jus 
tify  the  old  belief  in  demoniac  obsession. 

Charles  Brockden  Brown  —  a  writer  whose  merits  have 
not  yet  been  sufficiently  acknowledged  —  has  given  a 
powerful  and  philosophical  analysis  of  this  morbid  state 
of  mind  —  this  diseased  conscientiousness,  obeying  the 
mad  suggestions  of  a  disordered  brain  as  the  injunctions 
of  divinity  —  in  his  remarkable  story  of  Wieland.  The 
hero  of  this  strange  and  solemn  romance,  inheriting  a 


FANATICISM.  109 

melancholy  and  superstitious  mental  constitution,  becomes 
in  middle  age  the  victim  of  a  deep,  and  tranquil  because 
deep,  fanaticism.  A  demon  in  human  form,  perceiving 
his  state  of  mind,  wantonly  experiments  upon  it,  deepen 
ing  and  intensating  it  by  a  fearful  series  of  illusions  of 
sight  and  sound.  Tricks  of  jugglery  and  ventriloquism 
seem  to  his  feverish  fancies  miracles  and  omens  —  the 
eye  and  the  voice  of  the  Almighty  piercing  the  atmos 
phere  of  supernatural  mystery  in  which  he  has  long 
dwelt.  He  believes  that  he  is  called  upon  to  sacrifice  the 
beloved  wife  of  his  bosom  as  a  testimony  of  the  entire 
subjugation  of  his  carnal  reason  and  earthly  affections  to 
the  divine  will.  In  the  entire  range  of  English  literature 
there  is  no  more  thrilling  passage  than  that  which  describes 
the  execution  of  this  baleful  suggestion.  The  coloring  of 
the  picture  is  an  intermingling  of  the  lights  of  heaven  and 
hell  —  soft  shades  of  tenderest  pity  and  warm  tints  of 
unextinguishable  love  contrasting  with  the  terrible  out 
lines  of  an  insane  and  cruel  purpose,  traced  with  the 
blood  of  murder.  The  masters  of  the  old  Greek  tragedy 
have  scarcely  exceeded  the  sublime  horror  of  this  scene 
from  the  American  novelist.  The  murderer  confronted 
with  his  gentle  and  loving  victim  in  her  chamber;  her 
anxious  solicitude  for  his  health  and  quiet ;  her  affec 
tionate  caress  of  welcome ;  his  own  relentings  and  natu 
ral  shrinking  from  his  dreadful  purpose ;  and  the  terrible 


110  RECREATIONS    AND    3IISCELLANIES. 

strength  which  he  supposes  is  lent  him  of  Heaven,  by 
which  he  puts  down  the  promptings  and  yearnings  of  his 
human  heart  and  is  enabled  to  execute  the  mandate  of 
an  inexorable  Being,  —  are  described  with  an  intensity 
which  almost  stops  the  heart  of  the  reader.  When  the 
deed  is  done  a  frightful  conflict  of  passions  takes  place, 
which  can  only  be  told  in  the  words  of  the  author :  — 

"  I  lifted  the  corpse  in  my  arms  and  laid  it  on  the  bed. 
I  gazed  upon  it  with  delight.  Such  was  my  elation  that 
I  even  broke  out  into  laughter.  I  clapped  my  hands  and 
exclaimed,  '  It  is  done  !  My  sacred  duty  is  fulfilled  !  To 
that  I  have  sacrificed,  0  God,  thy  last  and  best  gift, 
my  wife  ! ' 

"  For  a  while  I  thus  soared  above  frailty.  I  imagined 
I  had  set  myself  forever  beyond  the  reach  of  selfishness. 
But  my  imaginations  were  false.  This  rapture  quickly 
subsided.  I  looked  again  at  my  wife.  My  joyous  ebulli 
tions  vanished.  I  asked  myself  who  it  was  whom  I  saw. 
Methought  it  could  not  be  my  Catharine ;  it  could  not  be 
the  woman  who  had  lodged  for  years  in  my  heart ;  who 
had  slept  nightly  in  my  bosom ;  who  had  borne  in  her 
womb  and  fostered  at  her  breast  the  beings  who  called 
me  father ;  whom  I  had  watched  over  with  delight  and 
cherished  with  a  fondness  ever  new  and  perpetually  grow 
ing.  It  could  not  be  the  same ! 

"  The  breath  of  heaven  that  sustained  me  was  with- 


FANATICISM.  Ill 

drawn,  and  I  sunk  into  mere  man.  I  leaped  from  the 
floor ;  I  dashed  my  head  against  the  wall ;  I  uttered 
screams  of  horror;  I  panted  after  torment  and  pain. 
Eternal  fire  and  the  bickerings  of  hell,  compared  with 
what  I  felt,  were  music  and  a  bed  of  roses. 

"  I  thank  my  God  that  this  was  transient ;  that  he 
designed  once  more  to  raise  me  aloft.  I  thought  upon 
what  I  had  done  as  a  sacrifice  to  duty,  and  was  calm.  My 
•wife  was  dead ;  but  I  reflected  that,  although  this  source 
of  human  consolation  was  closed,  others  were  still  open. 
If  the  transports  of  the  husband  were  no  more,  the  feel 
ings  of  the  father  had  still  scope  for  exercise.  When 
remembrance  of  their  mother  should  excite  too  keen  a 
pang,  I  would  look  upon  my  children  and  be  comforted. 

"  While  I  revolved  these  things  new  warmth  flowed  in 
upon  my  heart.  I  was  wrong.  These  feelings  were  the 
growth  of  selfishness.  Of  this  I  was  not  aware  ;  and,  to 
dispel  the  mist  that  obscured  my  perceptions,  a  new  light 
and  a  new  mandate  were  necessary. 

"  From  these  thoughts  I  was  recalled  by  a  ray  which 
was  shot  into  the  room.  A  voice  spoke  like  that  I  had 
before  heard,  *  Thou  hast  done  well ;  but  all  is  not  done 
—  the  sacrifice  is  incomplete  —  thy  children  must  be 
offered  —  they  must  perish  with  their  mother ! ' ': 

The  misguided  man  obeys  the  voice ;  his  children  are 
destroyed  in  their  bloom  and  innocent  beauty.  He  is 


112  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

arrested,  tried  for  murder,  and  acquitted  as  insane.  The 
light  breaks  in  upon  him  at  last;  he  discovers  the  im 
posture  which  has  controlled  him ;  and,  made  desperate 
by  the  full  consciousness  of  his  folly  and  crime,  ends  the 
terrible  drama  by  suicide. 

Wieland  is  not  a  pleasant  book.  In  one  respect  it 
resembles  the  modern  tale  of  Wuthering  .Heights;  it  has 
great  strength  and  power,  but  no  beauty.  Unlike  that, 
however,  it  has  an  important  and  salutary  moral.  It  is  a 
warning  to  all  who  tamper  with  the  mind  and  rashly 
experiment  upon  its  religious  element.  As  such,  its 
perusal  by  the  sectarian  zealots  of  all  classes  would 
perhaps  be  quite  as  profitable  as  much  of  their  present 
studies. 


THE   BORDER   WAR  OF   1708. 

THE  picturesque  site  of  the  now  large  village  of  Ha- 
verhill,  on  the  Merrimac  River,  was  occupied  a  century 
and  a  half  ago  by  some  thirty  dwellings,  scattered  at  un 
equal  distances  along  the  two  principal  roads,  one  of 
which,  running  parallel  with  the  river,  intersected  the 
other,  which  ascended  the  hill  northwardly  and  lost  itself 
in  the  -dark  woods.  The  log  huts  of  the  first  settlers  had 
at  that  time  given  place  to  comparatively  spacious  and 
commodious  habitations,  framed  and  covered  with  sawed 
boards,  and  cloven  clapboards,  or  shingles.  They  were, 
many  of  them,  two  stories  in  front,  with  the  roof  sloping 
off  behind  to  a  single  one ;  the  windows  few  and  small, 
and  frequently  so  fitted  as  to  be  opened  with  difficulty, 
and  affording  but  a  scanty  supply  of  light  and  air.  Two 
or  three  of  the  best  constructed  were  occupied  as  garri 
sons,  where,  in  addition  to  the  family,  small  companies  of 
soldiers  were  quartered.  On  the  high  grounds  rising 
from  the  river  stood  the  mansions  of  the  well-defined 
aristocracy  of  the  little  settlement  —  larger  and  more  im- 
8 


114  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

posing,  with  projecting  upper  stories  and  carved  cornices. 
On  the  front  of  one  of  these,  over  the  elaborately  wrought 
entablature  of  the  doorway,  might  be  seen  the  armorial 
bearings  of  the  honored  family  of  Saltonstall.  Its  hos 
pitable  door  was  now  closed;  no  guests  filled  its  spacious 
hall  or  partook  of  the  rich  delicacies  of  its  ample  larder. 
Death  had  been  there ;  its  venerable  and  respected  occu 
pant  had  just  been  borne  by  his  peers  in  rank  and  station 
to  the  neighboring  graveyard.  Learned,  affable,  intrepid, 
a  sturdy  asserter  of  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  prov 
ince,  and  so  far  in  advance  of  his  time  as  to  refuse  to 
yield  to  the  terrible  witchcraft  delusion,  vacating  his 
seat  on  the  bench  and  openly  expressing  his  disapproba 
tion  of  the  violent  and  sanguinary  proceedings  .of  the 
court,  wise  in  council  and  prompt  in  action,  —  not  his 
own  townsmen  alone,  but  the  people  of  the  entire  prov 
ince,  had  reason  to  mourn  the  loss  of  Nathaniel  Sal 
tonstall. 

Four  years  before  the  events  of  which  we  are  about  to 
speak  the  Indian  allies  of  the  French  in  Canada  suddenly 
made  their  appearance  in  the  westerly  part  of  the  settle 
ment.  At  the  close  of  a  midwinter  day  six  savages 
rushed  into  the  open  gate  of  a  garrison  house  owned  by 
one  Bradley,  who  appears  to  have  been  absent  at  the 
time.  A  sentinel  stationed  in  the  house  discharged  his 
musket,  killing  the  foremost  Indian,  and  was  himself 


THE    BORDER    WAR    OF    1708.  115 

instantly  shot  down.  The  mistress  of  the  house,  a  spirited 
young  woman,  was  making  soap  in  a  large  kettle  over 
the  fire.  She  seized  her  ladle  and  dashed  the  boiling 
liquid  in  the  faces  of  the  assailants,  scalding  one  of  them 
severely,  and  was  only  captured  after  such  a  resistance  as 
can  scarcely  be  conceived  of  by  the  delicately  framed  and 
tenderly  nurtured  occupants  of  the  places  of  our  great- 
grandmothers.  After  plundering  the  house,  the  Indians 
started  on  their  long  winter  march  for  Canada.  Tradition 
says  that  some  thirteen  persons,  probably  women  and 
children,  were  killed  outright  at  the  garrison.  Goodwife 
Bradley  and  four  others  were  spared  as  prisoners.  The 
ground  was  covered  with  deep  snow,  and  the  captives 
were  compelled  to  carry  heavy  burdens  of  their  plundered 
household  stuffs ;  while  for  many  days  in  succession  they 
had  no  other  sustenance  than  bits  of  hide,  ground  nuts, 
the  bark  of  trees,  and  the  roots  of  wild  onions  and  lilies. 
In  this  situation,  in  the  cold,  wintry  forest,  and  unattended, 
the  unhappy  young  woman  gave  birth  to  a  child.  Its 
cries  irritated  the  savages,  who  cruelly  treated  it  and 
threatened  its  life.  To  the  entreaties  of  the  mother  they 
replied,  that  they  would  spare  it  on  the  condition  that  it 
should  be  baptized  after  their  fashion.  She  gave  the 
little  innocent  into  their  hands,  when  with  mock  solemnity 
they  made  the  sign  of  the  cross  upon  its  forehead  by 
gashing  it  with  their  knives,  and  afterwards  barbarously 


116  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

put  it  to  death  before  the  eyes  of  its  mother,  seeming  to 
regard  the  whole  matter  as  an  excellent  piece  of  sport. 
Kothing  so  strongly  excited  the  risibilities  of  these  grim 
barbarians  as  the  tears  and  cries  of  their  victims  extorted 
by  physical  or  mental  agony.  Capricious  alike  in  their 
cruelties  and  their  kindnesses,  they  treated  some  of  their 
captives  with  forbearance  and  consideration  and  tor 
mented  others  apparently  without  cause.  One  man  on 
his  way  to  Canada  was  killed  because  they  did  not  like 
his  looks,  "he  ivas  so  sour;"  another  because  he  was 
"  old  and  good  for  nothing."  One  of  their  own  number, 
who  was  suffering  greatly  from  the  effects  of  the  scalding 
soap,  was  derided  and  mocked  as  a  "  fool  who  had  let  a 
squaw  whip  him  ; "  while  on  the  other  hand  the  energy 
and  spirit  manifested  by  Goodwife  Bradley  in  her  defence 
was  a  constant  theme  of  admiration,  and  gained  her  so 
much  respect  among  her  captors  as  to  protect  her  from 
personal  injury  or  insult.  On  her  arrival  in  Canada  she 
was  sold  to  a  French  farmer,  by  whom  she  was  kindly 
treated. 

In  the  mean  time  her  husband  made  every  exertion  in 
his  power  to  ascertain  her  fate,  and  early  in  the  next  year 
learned  that  she  was  a  slave  in  Canada.  He  immediately 
set  off  through  the  wilderness  on  foot,  accompanied  only 
by  his  dog,  who  drew  a  small  sled,  upon  which  he  carried 
some  provisions  for  his  sustenance,  and  a  bag  of  snuff', 


THE    BORDER    WAR    OF    1708.  117 

which  the  governor  of  the  province  gave  him  as  a  present" 
to  the  governor  of  Canada.  After  encountering  almost 
incredible  hardships  and  dangers  with  a  perseverance 
which  shows  how  well  he  appreciated  the  good  qualities 
of  his  stolen  helpmate,  he  reached  Montreal  and  betook 
himself  to  the  governor's  residence.  Travel-worn,  ragged, 
and  wasted  with  cold  and  hunger,  he  was  ushered  into  the 
presence  of  M.  Vaudreuil.  The  courtly  Frenchman  civ 
illy  received  the  gift  of  the  bag  of  snuff,  listened  to  the 
poor  fellow's  story,  and  put  him  in  a  way  to  redeem  his 
wife  without  difficulty.  The  joy  of  the  latter  on  seeing 
her  husband  in  the  strange  land  of  her  captivity  may 
well  be  imagined.  They  returned  by  water,  landing  at 
Boston  early  in  the  summer. 

There  is  a  tradition  that  this  was  not  the  goodwife's 
first  experience  of  Indian  captivity.  The  late  Dr.  Abiel 
Abbott,  in  his  manuscript  of  Judith  Whiting's  Recollec 
tions  of  the  Indian  Wars,  states  that  she  had  previously 
been  a  prisoner,  probably  before  her  marriage.  After 
her  return  she  lived  quietly  at  the  garrison  house  until 
the  summer  of  the  next  year.  One  bright  moonlit  night 
a  party  of  Indians  were  seen  silently  and  cautiously 
approaching.  The  only  occupants  of  the  garrison  at  that 
time  were  Bradley,  his  wife  and  children,  and  a  servant. 
The  three  adults  armed  themselves  with  muskets .  and 
prepared  to  defend  themselves.  Goodwife  Bradley,  sup- 


118  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

posing  the  Indians  had  come  with  the  intention  of  again 
capturing  her,  encouraged  her  husband  to  fight  to  the  last, 
declaring  that  she  had  rather  die  on  her  own  hearth  than 
fall  into  their  hands.  The  Indians  rushed  upon  the  gar 
rison,  and  assailed  the  thick  oaken  door,  which  they  forced 
partly  open,  when  a  well-aimed  shot  from  Goodwife  Brad 
ley  laid  the  foremost  dead  on  the  threshold.  The  loss  of 
their  leader  so  disheartened  them  that  they  made  a  hasty 
retreat. 

The  year  1707  passed  away  without  any  attack  upon 
the  exposed  frontier  settlement.  A  feeling  of  compara 
tive  security  succeeded  to  the  almost  sleepless  anxiety 
and  terror  of  its  inhabitants ;  and  they  were  beginning 
to  congratulate  each  other  upon  the  termination  of  their 
long  and  bitter  trials.  But  the  end  was  not  yet. 

Early  in  the  spring  of  1708  the  principal  tribes  of 
Indians  in  alliance  with  the  French  held  a  great  council 
and  agreed  to  furnish  three  hundred  warriors  for  an  expe 
dition  to  the  English  frontier.  They  were  joined  by  one 
hundred  French  Canadians  and  several  volunteers,  con 
sisting  of  officers  of  the  French  army,  and  younger  sons 
of  the  nobility,  adventurous  and  unscrupulous.  The  Sieur 
de  Chaillons,  and  Hertel  de  Rouville,  distinguished  as  a 
partisan  in  former  expeditions,  cruel  and  unsparing  as  his 
Indian  allies,  commanded  the  French  troops ;  the  Indians, 
marshalled  under  their  several  chiefs,  obeyed  the  general 


THE    BORDER    WAR    OF    1708.  119 

orders  of  La  Perriere.  A  Catholic  priest  accompanied 
them.  De  Rouville,  with  the  French  troops  and  a  portion 
of  the  Indians,  took  the  route  by  the  River  St.  Fra^ois 
about  the  middle  of  summer.  La  Perriere,  with  the 
French  Mohawks,  crossed  Lake  Champlain.  The  place 
of  rendezvous  was  Lake  Nickisipigue.  On  the  way  a 
Huron  accidentally  killed  one  of  his  companions;  where 
upon  the  tribe  insisted  on  halting  and  holding  a  council. 
It  was  gravely  decided  that  this  accident  was  an  evil 
omen  and  that  the  expedition  would  prove  disastrous ; 
and,  in  spite  of  the  endeavors  of  the  French  officers,  the 
whole  band  deserted.  Next  the  Mohawks  became  dis 
satisfied  and  refused  to  proceed.  To  the  entreaties  and 
promises  of  their  French  allies  they  replied  that  an 
infectious  disease  had  broken  out  among  them,  and  that, 
if  they  remained,  it  would  spread  through  the  whole 
army.  The  French  partisans  were  not  deceived  by  a 
falsehood  so  transparent ;  but  they  were  in  no  condition 
to  enforce  obedience ;  and,  with  bitter  execrations  and 
reproaches,  they  saw  the  Mohawks  turn  back  on  their 
war  path.  The  diminished  army  pressed  on  to  Nick 
isipigue,  in  the  expectation  of  meeting,  agreeably  to  their 
promise,  the  Norridgewock  and  Penobscot  Indians.  They 
found  the  place  deserted,  and,  after  waiting  for  some  days, 
were  forced  to  the  conclusion  that  the  eastern  tribes  had 
broken  their  pledge  of  cooperation  Under  these  circum- 


120  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

stances  a  council  was  held ;  and  the  original  design  of  the 
expedition,  viz.,  the  destruction  of  the  whole  line  of 
frontier  towns,  beginning  with  Portsmouth,  was  aban 
doned.  They  had  still  a  sufficient  force  for  the  surprise 
of  a  single  settlement ;  and  Haverhill,  on  the  Merrimac, 
was  selected  for  conquest. 

In  the  mean  time  intelligence  of  the  expedition,  greatly 
exaggerated  in  point  of  numbers  and  object,  had  reached 
Boston,  and  Governor  Dudley  had  despatched  troops  to 
the  more  exposed  outposts  of  the  provinces  of  Massa 
chusetts  and  New  Hampshire.  Forty  men,  under  the 
command  of  Major  Turner  and  Captains  Price  and  Gard 
ner,  were  stationed  at  Haverhill  in  the  different  garrison 
houses.  At  first  a  good  degree  of  vigilance  was  mani 
fested  ;  but,  as  days  and  weeks  passed  without  any  alarm, 
the  inhabitants  relapsed  into  their  old  habits ;  and  some 
even  began  to  believe  that  the  rumored  descent  of  the 
Indians  was  only  a  pretext  for  quartering  upon  them  two 
score  of  lazy,  rollicking  soldiers,  who  certainly  seemed 
more  expert  in  making  love  to  their  daughters  and  drink 
ing  their  best  ale  and  cider  than  in  patrolling  the  woods 
or  putting  the  garrisons  into  a  defensible  state.  The 
grain  and  hay  harvest  ended  without  disturbance ;  the 
men  worked  in  their  fields,  and  the  women  pursued  their 
household  avocations,  without  any  very  serious  appre 
hension  of  danger. 


THE    BORDER    WAR    OF    1708.  121 

Among  the  inhabitants  of  the  village  was  an  eccentric, 
ne'er-do-well  fellow,  named  Keezar,  who  led  a  wandering, 
unsettled  life,  oscillating,  like  a  crazy  pendulum,  between 
Haverhill  and  Amesbury.  He  had  a  smattering  of  a 
variety  of  trades,  was  a  famous  wrestler,  and  for  a  mug 
of  ale  would  leap  over  an  ox  cart  with  the  unspilled 
beverage  in  his  hand.  On  one  occasion,  when  at  supper, 
his  wife  complained  that  she  had  no  tin  dishes  ;  and,  as 
there  were  none  to  be  obtained  nearer  than  Boston,  he 
started  on  foot  in  the  evening,  travelled  through  the 
woods  to  the  city,  and  returned  with  his  ware  by  sunrise 
the  next  morning,  passing  over  a  distance  of  between 
sixty  and  seventy  miles.  The  tradition  of  his  strange 
habits,  feats  of  strength,  and  wicked  practical  jokes  is 
still  common  in  his  native  town.  On  the  morning  of  the 
29th  of  the  eighth  month  he  was  engaged  in  taking  home 
his  horse,  which,  according  to  his  custom,  he  had  turned 
into  his  neighbor's  rich  clover  field  the  evening  previous. 
By  the  gray  light  of  dawn  he  saw  a  long  file  of  men 
marching  silently  towards  the  town.  He  hurried  back  to 
the  village  and  gave  the  alarm  by  firing  a  gun.  Pre 
vious  to  this,  however,  a  young  man  belonging  to  a  neigh 
boring  town,  who  had  been  spending  the  night  with  a 
young  woman  of  the  village,  had  met  the  advance  of  the 
war  party,  and,  turning  back'  in  extreme  terror  and  con 
fusion,  .thought  only  of  the  safety  of  his  betrothed,  and 


122  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

passed  silently  through  a  considerable  part  of  the  village 
to  her  dwelling.  After  he  had  effectually  concealed  her 
he  ran  out  to  give  the  alarm.  But  it  was  too  late. 
Keezar's  gun  was  answered  by  the  terrific  yells,  whistling, 
and  whooping  of  the  Indians.  House  after  house  was 
assailed  and  captured.  Men,  women,  and  children  were 
massacred.  The  minister  of  the  town  was  killed  by  a 
shot  through  his  door.  Two  of  his  children  were  saved 
by  the  courage  and  sagacity  of  his  negro  slave  Hagar. 
She  carried  them  into  the  cellar  and  covered  them  with 
tubs,  and  then  crouched  behind  a  barrel  of  meal  just  in 
time  to  escape  the  vigilant  eyes  of  the  enemy,  who 
entered  the  cellar  and  plundered  it.  She  saw  them  pass 
and  repass  the  tubs  under  which  the  children  lay  and 
take  meat  from  the  very  barrel  which  concealed  herself. 
Three  soldiers  were  quartered  in  the  house ;  but  they 
made  no  defence,  and  were  killed  while  begging  for 
quarter. 

The  wife  of  Thomas  Hartshorne,  after  her  husband 
and  three  sons  had  fallen,  took  her  younger  children  into 
the  cellar,  leaving  an  infant  on  a  bed  in  the  garret,  fear 
ful  that  its  cries  would  betray  her  place  of  concealment 
if  she  took  it  with  her.  The  Indians  entered  the  garret 
and  tossed  the  child  out  of  the  window  upon  a  pile  of 
clapboards,  where  it  was  afterwards  found  stunned  and 
insensible.  It  recovered,  nevertheless,  and  became  a  man 


THE    BORDER    WAR    OF    1708.  123 

of  remarkable  strength  and  stature ;  and  it  used  to  be  a 
standing  joke  with  his  friends  that  he  had  been  stinted 
by  the  Indians  when  they  threw  him  out  of  the  window. 
Goodwife  Swan,  armed  with  a  long  spit,  successfully 
defended  her  door  against  two  Indians.  While  the  mas 
sacre  went  on,  the  priest  who  accompanied  the  expedition, 
with  some  of  the  French  officers,  went  into  the  meeting 
house,  the  walls  of  which  were  afterwards  found  written 
over  with  chalk.  At  sunrise,  Major  Turner,  with  a  por 
tion  of  his  soldiers,  entered  the  village  ;  and  the  enemy 
made  a  rapid  retreat,  carrying  with  them  seventeen  pris 
oners.  They  were  pursued  and  overtaken  just  as  they 
were  entering  the  woods  ;  and  a  severe  skirmish  took 
place,  in  which  the  rescue  of  some  of  the  prisoners  was 
effected.  Thirty  of  the  enemy  were  left  dead  on  the  field, 
including  the  infamous  Hertel  de  Rouville.  On  the  part 
of  the  villagers,  Captains  Ayer  and  Wainwright  and 
Lieutenant  Johnson,  with  thirteen  others,  were  killed. 
The  intense  heat  of  the  weather  made  it  necessary  to 
bury  the  dead  on  the  same  day.  They  were  laid  side  by 
side  in  a  long  trench  in  the  burial  ground.  The  body  of 
the  venerated  and  lamented  minister,  with  those  of  his 
wife  and  child,  sleep  in  another  part  of  the  burial  ground, 
where  may  still  be  seen  a  rude  monument  with  its  almost 
illegible  inscription  :  — 

"  Clauditur  hoc  tumulo  corpus  Reverendi  pii  doctique 


]24  EECREATIONS   AND    MISCELLANIES. 

viri  D.  Benjamin  Rolfe,  ecclesice  Christi  quce  est  in 
Haverhill  pastoris  fidelissimi  ;  qui  domi  suce  ab  hostibus 
barbare  trucidatus.  A  laboribus  suis  requievit  mane  did 
sacrce  quietis,  Aug.  XXIX,  anno  Dom.  MD  CO  VIII. 
jEtatis  suce  XL  VI" 

Of  the  prisoners  taken,  some  escaped  during  the  skir 
mish,  and  two  or  three  were  sent  back  by  the  French 
officers,  with  a  message  to  the  English  soldiers,  that,  if 
they  pursued  the  party  on  their  retreat  to  Canada,  the 
other  prisoners  should  be  put  to  death.  One  of  them,  a 
soldier  stationed  in  Captain  Wainwright's  garrison,  on  his 
return  four  years  after,  published  an  account  of  his  cap 
tivity.  He  was  compelled  to  carry  a  heavy  pack,  and 
was  led  by  an  Indian  by  a  cord,  round  his  neck.  The 
whole  party  suffered  terribly  from  hunger.  On  reaching 
Canada  the  Indians  shaved  one  side  of  his  head,  and 
greased  the  other,  and  painted  his  face.  At  a  fort  nine 
miles  from  Montreal  a  council  was  held  in  order  to  decide 
his  fate  ;  and  he  had  the  unenviable  privilege  of  listening 
to  a  protracted  discussion  upon  the  expediency  of  burning 
him.  The  fire  was  already  kindled,  and  the  poor  fellow 
was  preparing  to  meet  his  doom  with  firmness,  when  it 
was  announced  to  him  that  his  life  was  spared.  This 
result  of  the  council  by  no  means  satisfied  the  women  and 
boys,  who  had  anticipated  rare  sport  in  the  roasting  of  a 
white  man  and  a  heretic.  One  squaw  assailed  him  with 


THE    BORDER    WAR    OF    1708.  125 

a  knife  and  cut  off  one  of  his  fingers;  another  beat  him 
with  a  pole.  The  Indians  spent  the  night  in  dancing  and 
singing,  compelling  their  prisoner  to  go  round  the  ring 
with  them.  In  the  morning  one  of  their  orators  made  a 
long  speech  to  him,  and  formally  delivered  him  over  to  an 
old  squaw,  who  took  him  to  her  wigwam  and  treated  him 
kindly.  Two  or  three  of  the  young  women  who  were 
carried  away  captive  married  Frenchmen  in  Canada  and 
never  returned.  Instances  of  this  kind  were  by  no  means 
rare  during  the  Indian  wars.  The  simple  manners,  gayety, 
and  social  habits  of  the  French  colonists  among  whom 
the  captives  were  dispersed  seem  to  have  been  peculiarly 
fascinating  to  the  daughters  of  the  grave  and  severe 
Puritans. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  present  century,  Judith  Whi 
ting  was  the  solitary  survivor  of  all  who  witnessed  the 
inroad  of  the  French  and  Indians  in  1708.  She  was 
eight  years  of  age  at  the  time  of  the  attack,  and  her 
memory  of  it  to  the  last  was  distinct  and  vivid.  Upon 
her  old  brain,  from  whence  a  great  portion  of  the  records 
of  the  intervening  years  had  been  obliterated,  that  ter 
rible  picture,  traced  with  fire  and  blood,  retained  its  sharp 
outlines  and  baleful  colors. 


THE    GREAT  IPSWICH   FRIGHT. 

"  The  Frere  into  the  dark  gazed  forth ; 
The  sounds  went  onward  towards  the  north  ; 
The  murmur  of  tongues,  the  tramp  and  tread 
Of  a  mighty  army  to  battle  led."  * 

LIFE'S  tragedy  and  comedy  are  never  far  apart.  The 
ludicrous  and  the  sublime,  the  grotesque  and  the  pa 
thetic,  jostle  each  other  on  the  stage ;  the  jester,  with 
his  cap  and  bells,  struts  alongside  of  the  hero ;  the  lord 
mayor's  pageant  loses  itself  in  the  mob  around  Punch 
and  Judy;  the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  war  become 
mirth-provoking  in  a  militia  muster ;  and  the  majesty  of 
the  law  is  ridiculous  in  the  mock  dignity  of  a  justice's 
court.  The  laughing  philosopher  of  old  looked  on  one 
side  of  life  and  his  weeping  contemporary  on  the  other ; 
but  he  who  has  an  eye  to  both  must  often  experience  that 
contrariety  of  feeling  which  Sterne  compares  to  u  the  con 
test  in  the  moist  eyelids  of  an  April  morning,  whether  to 
laugh  or  cry." 

*  Ballad  of  the  Cid. 


*  THE    GREAT    IPSWICH   FRIGHT.  127 

The  circumstance  we  are  about  to  relate  may  serve  as 
an  illustration  of  the  way  in  which  the  woof  of  comedy 
interweaves  with  the  warp  of  tragedy.  It  occurred  in 
the  early  stages  of  the  American  revolution,  and  is  part 
and  parcel  of  its  history  in  the  north-eastern  section  of 
Massachusetts. 

About  midway  between  Salem  and  the  ancient  town 
of  Newburyport,  the  traveller  on  the  Eastern  Railroad 
sees  on  the  right,  between  him  and  the  sea,  a  tall  church 
spire,  rising  above  a  semicircle  of  brown  roofs  and  vener 
able  elms ;  to  which  a  long  scolloping  range  of  hills,  sweep 
ing  off  to  the  seaside,  forms  a  green  background.  This 
is  Ispwich  —  the  ancient  Agawam ;  one  of  those  steady, 
conservative  villages  of  which  a  few  are  still  left  in  New 
England,  wherein  a  contemporary  of  Cotton  Mather  and 
Governor  Endicott,  were  he  permitted  to  revisit  the 
scenes  of  his  painful  probation,  would  scarcely  feel  him 
self  a  stranger.  Law  and  gospel,  imbodied  in  an  ortho 
dox  steeple  and  a  court  house,  occupy  the  steep,  rocky 
eminence  in  its  midst ;  below  runs  the  small  river  under 
its  picturesque  stone  bridge  ;  and  beyond  is  the  famous 
female  seminary,  where  Andover  theological  students  are 
wont  to  take  unto  themselves  wives  of  the  daughters  of 
the  Puritans.  An  air  of  comfort  and  quiet  broods  over 
the  whole  town.  Yellow  moss  clings  to  the  seaward 
sides  of  the  roofs :  one's  eyes  are  not  endangered  by  the 


128  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

intense  glare  of  painted  shingles  and  clapboards.  The 
smoke  of  hospitable  kitchens  curls  up  through  the 
overshadowing  elms  from  huge-throated  chimneys  whose 
hearthstones  have  been  worn  by  the  feet  of  many  gener 
ations.  The  tavern  was  once  renowned  throughout  New 
England,  and  it  is  still  a  creditable  hostelry.  During 
court  time  it  is  crowded  with  jocose  lawyers,  anxious  cli 
ents,  sleepy  jurors,  and  miscellaneous  hangers  on  —  dis 
interested  gentlemen,  who  have  no  particular  business  of 
their  own  in  court,  but  who  regularly  attend  its  sessions, 
•weighing  evidence,  deciding  upon  the  merits  of  a  lawyer's 
plea  or  a  judge's  charge,  getting  up  extempore  trials  upon 
the  piazza  or  in  the  bar  room  of  cases  still  involved  in  the 
glorious  uncertainty  of  the  law  in  the  court  house,  prof 
fering  gratuitous  legal  advice  to  irascible  plaintiffs  and 
desponding  defendants,  and  in  various  other  ways  seeing 
that  the  commonwealth  receives  no  detriment.  In  the 
autumn  old  sportsmen  make  the  tavern  their  head  quar 
ters  while  scouring  the  marshes  for  sea  birds  ;  and  slim 
young  gentlemen  from  the  city  return  thither  with  empty 
game  bags,  as  guiltless  in  respect  to  the  snipes  and  wag 
tails  as  Winkle  was  in  the  matter  of  the  rooks  after  his 
shooting  excursion  at  Dingle  Dell.  Twice,snay,  three 
times,  a  year  since  third  parties  have  been  in  fashion, 
the  delegates  of  the  political  churches  assemble  in  Ipswich 
to  pass  patriotic  resolutions,  and  designate  the  candidates 


THE    GREAT   IPSWICH   FRIGHT.  129 

whom  the  good  people  of  Essex  county,  with  implicit  faith 
in  the  wisdom  of  the  selection,  are  expected  to  vote  for. 
For  the  rest  there  are  pleasant  walks  and  drives  around 
the  picturesque  village.  The  people  are  noted  for  their 
hospitality  ;  in  summer  the  sea  wind  blows  cool  over  its 
healthy  hills ;  and,  take  it  for  all  in  all,  there  is  not  a 
better-preserved  or  pleasanter  specimen  of  a  Puritan 
town  remaining  in  the  ancient  commonwealth. 

The  21st  of  April,  1775,  witnessed  an  awful  commotion 
in  the  little  village  of  Ipswich.  Old  men,  and  boys,  (the 
middle  aged  had  marched  to  Lexington  some  days  before,) 
and  all  the  women  in  the  place  who  were  not  bedridden 
or  sick  came  rushing  as  with  one  accord  to  the  green  in 
front  of  the  meeting  house.  A  rumor,  which  no  one  at 
tempted  to  trace  or  authenticate,  spread  from  lip  to  lip 
that  the  British  regulars  had  landed  on  the  coast  and 
were  marching  upon  the  town.  A  scene  of  indescribable 
terror  and  confusion  followed.  Defence  was  out  of  the 
question,  as  the  young  and  ablebodied  men  of  the  entire 
region  round  about  had  marched  to  Cambridge 'and  Lex 
ington.  The  news  of  the  battle  at  the  latter  place,  exag 
gerated  in  all  its  details,  had  been  just  received  ;  terrible 
stories  of  the  atrocities  committed  by  the  dreaded  "  regu 
lars  "  had  been  related ;  and  it  was  believed  that  nothing 
short  of  a  general  extermination  of  the  patriots  —  men, 
women,  and  children  —  was  contemplated  by  the  British 
9 


130  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

commander.  Almost  simultaneously  the  people  of  Bever 
ly,  a  village  a  few  miles  distant,  were  smitten  with  the 
same  terror.  How  the  rumor  was  communicated  no  one 
could  tell.  It  was  there  believed  that  the  enemy  had 
fallen  upon  Ipswich  and  massacred  the  inhabitants  with 
out  regard  to  age  or  sex. 

It  was  about  the  middle  of  the  afternoon  of  this  day 
that  the  people  of  Newbury,  ten  miles  farther  north,  as 
sembled  in  an  informal  meeting  at  the  town  house  to  hear 
accounts  from  the  Lexington  fight  and  to  consider  what 
action  was  necessary  in  consequence  of  that  event.  Par 
son  Carey  was  about  opening  the  meeting  with  prayer 
when  hurried  hoofbeats  sounded  up  the  street,  and  a 
messenger,  loosehaired  and  panting  for  breath,  rushed  up 
the  staircase.  "  Turn  out,  turn  out,  for  God's  sake," 
he  cried,  "  or  you  will  all  be  killed !  The  regulars  are 
marching  on  us ;  they  are  at  Ipswich  now,  cutting  and 
slashing  all  before  them  !  "  Universal  consternation  was 
the  immediate  result  of  this  fearful  announcement ;  Par 
son  Caret's  prayer  died  on  his  lips ;  the  congregation 
dispersed  over  the  town,  carrying  to  every  house  the 
tidings  that  the  regulars  had  come.  Men  on  horseback 
went  galloping  up  and  down  the  streets  shouting  the 
alarm.  Women  and  children  echoed  it  from  every 
corner.  The  panic  became  irresistible,  uncontrollable. 
Cries  were  heard  that  the  dreaded  invaders  had  reached 


THE    GREAT    IPSWICH    FRIGHT.  131 

Oldtown  Bridge,  a  little  distance  from  the  village,  and  that 
they  were  killing  all  whom  they  encountered.  Flight  was 
resolved  upon.  All  the  horses  and  vehicles  in  the  town 
were  put  in  requisition ;  men,  women,  and  children  hur 
ried  as  for  life  towards  the  north.  Some  threw  their 
silver  and  pewter  ware  and  other  valuables  into  wells. 
Large  numbers  crossed  the  Merrimac  and  spent  the 
night  in  the  deserted  houses  of  Salisbury,  whose  inhabit 
ants,  stricken  by  the  strange  terror,  had  fled  into  New 
Hampshire  to  take  up  their  lodgings  in  dwellings  also 
abandoned  by  their  owners.  A  few  individuals  refused 
to  fly  with  the  multitude :  some,  unable  to  move  by  reason 
of  sickness,  were  left  behind  by  their  relatives.  One  old 
gentleman,  whose  excessive  corpulence  rendered  retreat 
on  his  part  impossible,  made  a  virtue  of  necessity ;  and, 
seating  himself  in  his  doorway  with  his  loaded  king's 
arm,  upbraided  his  more  nimble  neighbors,  advising  them 
to  do  as  he  did,  and  "  stop  and  shoot  the  devils."  Many 
ludicrous  instances  of  the  intensity  of  the  terror  might  be 
related.  One  man  got  his  family  into  a  boat  to  go  to 
Ram  Island  for  safety.  He  imagined  he  was  pursued  by 
the  enemy  through  the  dusk  of  the  evening,  and  was  an 
noyed  by  the  crying  of  an  infant  in  the  after  part  of  the 
boat.  "  Do  throw  that  squalling  brat  overboard,"  he 
called  to  his  wife,  "or  we  shall  be  all  discovered  and 
killed."  A  poor  woman  ran  four  or  five  miles  up  the 


132  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

river  arid  stopped  to  take  breath  and  nurse  her  child, 
•when  she  found  to  her  great  horror  that  she  had  brought 
off  the  cat  instead  of  the  baby ! 

All  through  that  memorable  night  the  terror  swept  on 
ward  towards  the  north  with  a  speed  which  seems  almost 
miraculous,  producing  every  where  the  same  results.  At 
midnight  a  horseman  clad  only  in  shirt  and  breeches 
dashed  by  our  grandfather's  door,  in  Haverhill,  twenty 
miles  up  the  river.  "  Turn  out !  Get  a  musket !  Turn 
out !  "  he  shouted ;  "  the  regulars  are  landing  on  Plum 
Island  !  "  "  I'm  glad  of  it,"  responded  the  old  gentleman 
from  his  chamber  window  ;  "  I  wish  they  were  all  there, 
and  obliged  to  stay  there."  When  it  is  understood  that 
Plum  Island  is  little  more  than  a  naked  sand  ridge,  the 
benevolence  of  this  wish  can  be  readily  appreciated. 

All  the  boats  on  the  river  were  constantly  employed  for 
several  hours  in  conveying  across  the  terrified  fugitives. 
Through  "  the  dead  waste  and  middle  of  the  night "  they 
fled  over  the  border  into  New  Hampshire.  Some  feared 
to  take  the  frequented  roads,  and  wandered  over  wooded 
hills  and  through  swamps  where  the  snows  of  the  late 
winter  had  scarcely  melted.  They  heard  the  tramp  and 
outcry  of  those  behind  them,  and  fancied  that  the  sounds 
were  made  by  pursuing  enemies.  Fast  as  they  fled,  the 
terror,  by  some  unaccountable  means,  outstripped  them. 
They  found  houses  deserted  and  streets  strewn  with  house- 


THE    GREAT    IPSWICH    FRIGHT.  133 

hold  stuffs  abandoned  in  the  hurry  of  escape.  Towards 
morning,  however,  the  tide  partially  turned.  Grown  men 
began  to  feel  ashamed  of  their  fears.  The  old  Anglo- 
Saxon  hardihood  paused  and  looked  the  terror  in  its  face. 
Single  or  in  small  parties,  armed  with  such  weapons  as 
they  found  at  hand,  —  among  which  long  poles,  sharpened 
and  charred  at  the  end,  were  conspicuous,  —  they  began  to 
retrace  their  steps.  In  the  mean  time  such  of  the  good 
people  of  Ipswich  as  were  unable  or  unwilling  to  leave  their 
homes  became  convinced  that  the  terrible  rumor  which 
had  nearly  depopulated  their  settlement  was  unfounded. 

Among  those  who  had  there  awaited  the  onslaught  of 
the  regulars  was  a  young  man  from  Exeter,  New  Hamp 
shire.  Becoming  satisfied  that  the  whole  matter  was  a 
delusion,  he  mounted  his  horse  and  followed  after  the  re 
treating  multitude,  undeceiving  all  whom  he  overtook. 
Late  at  night  he  reached  Newburyport,  greatly  to  the 
relief  of  its  sleepless  inhabitants,  and  hurried  across  the 
river,  proclaiming  as  he  rode  the  welcome  tidings.  The 
sun  rose  upon  haggard  and  jaded  fugitives,  worn  with 
excitement  and  fatigue,  slowly  returning  homeward,  their 
satisfaction  at  the  absence  of  danger  somewhat  moderated 
by  an  unpleasant  consciousness  of  the  ludicrous  scenes 
of  their  premature  night  flitting. 

Any  inference  which  might  be  drawn  from  the  fore 
going  narrative  derogatory  to  the  character  of  the  people 


134  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

of  New  England  at  that  day,  on  the  score  of  courage, 
would  be  essentially  erroneous.  It  is  true,  they  were  not 
the  men  to  court  danger  or  rashly  throw  away  their  lives 
for  the  mere  glory  of  the  sacrifice.  They  had  always  a 
prudent  and  wholesome  regard  to  their  own  comfort  and 
safety ;  they  justly  looked  upon  sound  heads  and  limbs  as 
better  than  broken  ones ;  life  was  to  them  too  serious  and 
important,  and  their  hardgained  property  too  valuable, 
to  be  lightly  hazarded.  They  never  attempted  to  cheat 
themselves  by  underestimating  the  difficulty  to  be  en 
countered  or  shutting  their  eyes  to  its  probable  conse 
quences.  Cautious,  wary,  schooled  in  the  subtle  strategy 
of  Indian  warfare,  where  self-preservation  is  by  no  means 
a  secondary  object,  they  had  little  in  common  with  the 
reckless  enthusiasm  of  their  French  allies  or  the  stolid 
indifference  of  the  fighting  machines  of  the  British  regular 
army.  When  danger  could  no  longer  be  avoided  they 
met  it  with  firmness  and  iron  endurance,  but  with  a  very 
vivid  appreciation  of  its  magnitude.  Indeed,  it  must  be 
admitted  by  all  who  are  familiar  with  the  history  of  our 
fathers  that  the  element  of  fear  held  an  important  place 
among  their  characteristics.  It  exaggerated  all  the  dan 
gers  of  their  earthly  pilgrimage  and  peopled  the  future 
with  shapes  of  evil.  Their  fear  of  Satan  invested  him 
with  some  of  the  attributes  of  Omnipotence  and  almost 
reached  the  point  of  reverence.  The  slightest  shock  of 


THE    GREAT    IPSWICH    FRIGHT.  135 

an  earthquake  filled  all  hearts  with  terror.  Stout  men 
trembled  by  their  hearths  with  dread  of  some  paralytic 
old  woman  supposed  to  be  a  witch.  And  when  they  be 
lieved  themselves  called  upon  to  grapple  with  these  ter 
rors  and  endure  the  afflictions  of  their  allotment,  they 
brought  to  the  trial  a  capability  of  suffering  undiminished 
by  the  chloroform  of  modern  philosophy.  They  were 
heroic  in  endurance.  Panics  like  the  one  we  have  de 
scribed  might  bow  and  sway  them  like  reeds  in  the  wind ; 
but  they  stood  up  like  the  oaks  of  their  own  forests 
beneath  the  thunder  and  the  hail  of  actual  calamity. 

It  was  certainly  lucky  for  the  good  people  of  Essex 
county  that  no  wicked  wag  of  a  tory  undertook  to  im 
mortalize  in  rhyme  their  ridiculous  hegira,  as  Judge 
Hopkinson  did  the  famous  Battle  of  the  Kegs  in  Phila 
delphia.  Like  the  more  recent  Madawaska  war  in 
Maine,  the  great  Chepatchet  demonstration  in  Rhode 
Island,  and  the  "  Sauk  fuss  "  of  Wisconsin,  it  remains  to 
this  day  "  unsyllabled,  unsung  ;"  and  the  fast-fading  mem 
ory  of  age  alone  preserves  the  unwritten  history  of  the 
great  Ipswich  fright. 


LORD   ASHLEY  AND   THE   THIEVES. 

"  THEY  that  be  whole  need  not  a  physician,  but  they 
that  are  sick,"  was  the  significant  answer  of  our  Lord  to 
the  self-righteous  Pharisees  who  took  offence  at  his  com 
panions —  the  poor,  the  degraded,  the  weak,  and  the  sinful. 
"  Go  ye  and  learn  what  that  meaneth.  I  will  have 
mercy,  and  not  sacrifice  ;  for  I  am  come  not  to  call  the 
righteous,  but  sinners,  to  repentance." 

The  great  lesson  of  duty  inculcated  by  this  answer  of 
the  divine  Teacher  has  been  too  long  overlooked  by 
individuals  and  communities  professedly  governed  by  his 
maxims.  The  phylacteries  of  our  modern  Pharisees  are 
as  broad  as  those  of  the  old  Jewish  saints.  The  respect 
able  Christian  detests  his  vicious  and  ill-conditioned 
neighbors  as  heartily  as  the  Israelite  did  the  publicans  and 
sinners  of  his  day.  He  folds  his  robe  of  self-righteous 
ness  closely  about  him,  and  denounces  as  little  better  than 
sinful  weakness  all  commiseration  for  the  guilty ;  and  all 
attempts  to  restore  and  reclaim  the  erring  violators  of 
human  law  otherwise  than  by  pains  and  penalties  as 

(136) 


LORD    ASHLEY   AND    THE    THIEVES.  137 

wicked  collusion  with  crime,  dangerous  to  the  stability 
and  safety  of  society  and  offensive  in  the  sight  of  God. 
And  yet  nothing  is  more  certain  than  that,  just  in  pro 
portion  as  the  example  of  our  Lord  has  been  followed  in 
respect  to  the  outcast  and  criminal,  the  effect  has  been  to 
reform  and  elevate  —  to  snatch  as  brands  from  the  burn 
ing  souls  not  yet  wholly  given  over  to  the  service  of  evil. 
The  wonderful  influence  for  good  exerted  over  the  most 
degraded  and  reckless  criminals  of  London  by  the  excel 
lent  and  self-denying  Elizabeth  Fry,  the  happy  results  of 
the  establishment  of  houses  of  refuge  and  reformation 
and  Magdalen  asylums,  all  illustrate  the  wisdom  of  Him 
who  went  about  doing  good,  in  pointing  out  the  morally 
diseased  as  the  appropriate  subjects  of  the  benevolent 
labors  of  his  disciples.  Xo  one  is  to  be  despaired  of. 
We  have  no  warrant  to  pass  by  any  of  our  fellow-crea 
tures  as  beyond  the  reach  of  God's  grace  and  mercy ; 
for,  beneath  the  most  repulsive  and  hateful  outward  man 
ifestation,  there  is  always  a  consciousness  of  the  beauty 
of  goodness  and  purity,  and  of  the  loathsomeness  of  sin 
—  one  chamber  of  the  heart  as  yet  not  wholly  profaned, 
whence  at  times  arises  the  prayer  of  a  burdened  and 
miserable  spirit  for  deliverance.  Deep  down  under  the 
squalid  exterior,  unparticipative  in  the  hideous  merriment 
and  recklessness  of  the  criminal,  there  is  another  self,  —  a 
chained  and  suffering  inner  man,  —  crying  out,  in  the 


138  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

intervals  of  intoxication  and  brutal  excesses,  like  Jonah 
from  the  bosom  of  hell.  To  this  lingering  consciousness  the 
sympathy  and  kindness  of  benevolent  and  humane  spirits 
seldom  appeal  in  vain ;  for,  whatever  may  be  outward 
appearances,  it  remains  true  that  the  way  of  the  trans 
gressor  is  hard,  and  that  sin  and  suffering  are  inseparable. 
Crime  is  seldom  loved  or  persevered  in  for  its  own  sake; 
but,  when  once  the  evil  path  is  entered  upon,  a  return 
is  in  reality  extremely  difficult  to  the  unhappy  wanderer, 
and  often  seems  well  nigh  impossible.  The  laws  of  social 
life  rise  up  like  insurmountable  barriers  between  him  and 
escape.  As  he  turns  towards  the  society  whose  rights  he 
has  outraged  its  frown  settles  upon  him;  the  penalties 
of  the  laws  he  has  violated  await  him ;  and  he  falls  back 
despairing,,  and  suffers  the  fetters  of  the  evil  habit  to 
whose  power  he  has  yielded  himself  to  be  fastened  closer 
and  heavier  upon  him.  0  for  some  good  angel,  in  the 
form  of  a  brother-man  and  touched  with  a  feeling  of  his 
sins  and  infirmities,  to  reassure  his  better  nature  and  to 
point  out  a  way  of  escape  from  its  body  of  death  ! 

We  have  been  led  into  these  remarks  by  an  account, 
given  in  the  London  Weekly  Chronicle,  of  a  most  re 
markable  interview  between  the  professional  thieves  of 
London  and  Lord  Ashley  —  a  gentleman  whose  best 
patent  of  nobility  is  to  be  found  in  his  generous  and 
untiring  devotion  to  the  interests  of  his  fellow-men.  It 


LORD    ASHLET   AXD    THE    THIEVES.  133 

appears  that  a  philanthropic  gentleman  in  London  had 
been  applied  to  by  two  young  thieves  who  had  relin 
quished  their  evil  practices  and  were  obtaining  a  pre 
carious  but  honest  livelihood  by  picking  up  bones  and 
rags  in  the  streets  —  their  loss  of  character  closing  against 
them  all  other  employments.  He  had  just  been  reading 
an  address  of  Lord  Ashley's  in  favor  of  colonial  emigra 
tion,  and  he  was  led  to  ask  one  of  the  young  men  how  he 
would  like  to  emigrate.  "  I  should  jump  at  the  chance ! " 
was  the  reply.  Not  long  after  the  gentleman  was  sent 
for  to  visit  one  of  those  obscure  and  ruinous  courts  of  the 
great  metropolis  where  crime  and  poverty  lie  down  to 
gether —  localities  which  Dickens  has  pictured  with  such 
painful  distinctness.  Here,  to  his  surprise,  he  met  a 
number  of  thieves  and  outlaws,  who  declared  themselves 
extremely  anxious  to  know  whether  any  hope  could  be 
held  out  to  them  of  obtaining  an  honest  living,  however 
humble,  in  the  colonies,  as  their  only  reason  for  continu 
ing  in  their  criminal  course  was  the  impossibility  of 
extricating  themselves.  He  gave  them  such  advice  and 
encouragement  as  he  was  able,  and  invited  them  to 
assemble  again,  with  such  of  their  companions  as  they 
could  persuade  to  do  so,  at  the  room  of  the  Irish  Free 
School,  for  the  purpose  of  meeting  Lord  Ashley.  On  the 
27th  of  the  seventh  month  last  the  meeting  took  place. 
At  the  hour  appointed,  Lord  Ashley  and  five  or  six  other 


140  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

benevolent  gentlemen  interested  in  emigration  as  a  means 
of  relief  and  reformation  to  the  criminal  poor  entered  the 
room,  which  was  already  well  nigh  filled.  Two  hundred 
and  seven  professed  thieves  were  present.  "  Several  of 
the  most  experienced  thieves  were  stationed  at  the  door  to 
prevent  the  admission  of  any  but  thieves.  Some  four  or 
five  individuals,  who  were  not  at  first  known,  were  sub 
jected  to  examination,  and  only  allowed  to  remain  on 
stating  that  they  were,  and  being  recognized  as  members 
of  the  dishonest  fraternity ;  and  before  the  proceedings 
of  the  evening  commenced  the  question  was  very  care 
fully  put,  and  repeated  several  times,  whether  any  one 
was  in  the  room  of  whom  others  entertained  doubts  as  to 
who  he  was.  The  object  of  this  care  was,  as  so  many  of 
them  were  in  danger  of  '  getting  into  trouble,'  or,  in  other 
words,  of  being  taken  up  for  their  crimes,  to  ascertain  if 
any  who  might  betray  them  were  present ;  and  another 
intention  of  this  scrutiny  was,  to  give  those  assembled, 
who  naturally  would  feel  considerable  fear,  a  fuller  con 
fidence  in  opening  their  minds." 

What  a  novel  conference  between  the  extremes  of 
modern  society  !  All  that  is  beautiful  in  refinement  and 
education,  moral  symmetry  and  Christian  grace,  con 
trasting  with  the  squalor,  the  ignorance,  the  lifelong 
depravity  of  men  living  "  without  God  in  the  world  "  — 
the  pariahs  of  civilization  —  the  moral  lepers,  at  the 


LORD    ASHLEY    AND    THE    THIEVES.  141 

sight  of  whom  decency  covers  its  face,  and  cries  out, 
Uf7ndean/n  After  a  prayer  had  been  offered  Lord 
Ashley  spoke  at  considerable  length,  making  a  profound 
impression  on  his  strange  auditory  as  they  listened  to  his 
plans  of  emigration,  which  offered  them  an  opportunity 
to  escape  from  their  miserable  condition  and  enter  upon  a 
respectable  course  of  life.  The  hard  heart  melted  and 
the  cold  and  cruel  eye  moistened.  With  one  ayccord  the 
wretched  felons  responded  to  the  language  of  Christian 
love  and  good  will  and  declared  their  readiness  to  follow 
the  advice  of  their  true  friend.  They  looked  up  to  him 
as  to  an  angel  of  mercy,  and  felt  the  malignant  spirits 
which  had  so  long  tormented  them  disarmed  of  all  power 
of  evil  in  the  presence  of  simple  goodness.  He  stood  in 
that  felon  audience  like  Spenser's  Una  amidst  the  satyrs ; 
unassailable  and  secure  in  the  "  unresistible  might  of 
meekness,"  and  panoplied  in  that 


noble  grace  which  dashed  brute  violence 


"With  sudden  adoration  and  mute  awe." 

Twenty  years  ago,  when  Elizabeth  Fry  ventured  to 
visit  those  "  spirits  in  prison,"  —  the  female  tenants  of 
Newgate,  —  her  temerity  was  regarded  with  astonishment, 
and  her  hope  of  effecting  a  reformation  in  the  miserable 
objects  of  her  sympathy  was  held  to  be  wholly  visionary. 
Her  personal  safety  and  the  blessed  fruits  of  her  labors, 


142  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

nevertheless,  confirmed  the  language  of  her  divine  Master 
to  his  disciples  when  he  sent  them  forth  as  lambs  among 
wolves :  "  Behold,  I  give  unto  you  power  over  all  the 
power  of  the  enemy."  The  still  more  unpromising  ex 
periment  of  Lord  Ashley,  thus  far,  has  been  equally  suc 
cessful  ;  and  we  hail  it  as  the  introduction  of  a  new  and 
more  humane  method  of  dealing  with  the  victims  of  sin 
and  ignorance  and  the  temptations  growing  out  of  the 
inequalities  and  vices  of  civilization. 


MIRTH  AND   MEDICINE  * 

IP  any  of  our  readers  (and  at  times  we  fear  it  is  the 
case  with  all)  need  amusement  and  the  wholesome  alter 
ative  of  a  hearty  laugh,  we  commend  them,  not  to  Dr. 
Holmes  the  physician,  but  to  Dr.  Holmes  the  scholar, 
the  wit,  and  the  humorist;  not  to  the  scientific  medical 
professor's  barbarous  Latin,  but  to  his  poetical  prescrip 
tions,  given  in  choice  old  Saxon.  We  have  tried  them, 
and  are  ready  to  give  the  doctor  certificates  of  their 
efficacy. 

Looking  at  the  matter  from  the  point  of  theory  only, 
we  should  say  that  a  physician  could  not  be  otherwise 
than  melancholy.  A  merry  doctor  !  Why,  one  might  as 
well  talk  of  a  laughing  death's  head  —  the  cachinnation  of 
a  monk's  memento  mori.  This  life  of  ours  is  sorrowful 
enough  at  its  best  estate;  the  brightest  phase  of  it  is 
"sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast"  of  the  future  or  the 
past.  But  it  is  the  special  vocation  of  the  doctor  to  look 


Poems  by  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes. 

(143) 


144  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

only  upon  the  shadow ;  to  turn  away  from  the  house  of 
feasting  and  go  down  to  that  of  mourning;  to  breathe 
day  after  day  the  atmosphere  of  wretchedness  ;  to  grow 
familiar  with  suffering ;  to  look  upon  humanity  disrobed 
of  its  pride  .and  glory,  robbed  of  all  its  fictitious  orna 
ments,  —  weak,  helpless,  naked,  —  and  undergoing  the  last 
fearful  metempsychosis  from  its  erect  and  godlike  image, 
the  living  temple  of  an  enshrined  divinity,  to  the  loath 
some  clod  and  the  inanimate  dust.  Of  what  ghastly- 
secrets  of  moral  and  physical  disease  is  he  the  depositary ! 
There  is  woe  before  him  and  behind  him ;  he  is  hand  and 
glove  with  misery  by  prescription — the  ex  officio  gauger 
of  the  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to.  He  has  no  home,  unless 
it  be  at  the  bedside  of  the  querulous,  the  splenetic,  the 
sick,  and  the  dying.  He  sits  down  to  carve  his  turkey, 
and  is  summoned  off  to  a  post  mortem  examination  of 
another  sort.  All  the  diseases  which  Milton's  imagina 
tion  jmbodied  in  the  lazar  house  dog  his  footsteps  and 
pluck  at  his  door  bell.  Hurrying  from  one  place  to 
another  at  their  beck,  he  knows  nothing  of  the  quiet  com 
fort  of  the  "  sleek-headed  men  who  sleep  o'  nights."  His 
wife,  if  he  has  one,  has  an  undoubted  right  to  advertise 
him  as  a  deserter  of  "bed  and  board."  His  ideas  of 
beauty,  the  imaginations  of  his  brain,  and  the  affections 
of  his  heart  are  regulated  and  modified  by  the  irre 
pressible  associations  of  his  luckless  profession..  Woman 


MIRTH    AND    MEDICINE.  145 

as  well  as  man  is  to  him  of  the  earth,  earthy.  He  sees 
incipient  disease  where  the  uninitiated  see  only  delicacy. 
A  smile  reminds  him  of  his  dental  operations  ;  a  blushing 
cheek  of  his  hectic  patients ;  pensive  melancholy  is  dys 
pepsia  ;  sentimentalism,  nervousness.  Tell  him  of  love 
lorn  hearts,  of  the  "  worm  i'  the  bud,"  of  the  mental  im 
palement  upon  Cupid's  arrow,  like  that  of  a  giaour  upon 
the  spear  of  a  janizary,  and  he  can  only  think  of  lack  of 
exercise,  of  tight  lacing,  and  slippers  in  winter.  Sheridan 
seems  to  have  understood  all  this,  if  we  may  judge  from 
the  lament  of  his  Doctor,  in  St.  Patrick's  Day,  over  his 
deceased  helpmate.  " Poor  dear  Dolly ! "  says  he.  "I 
shall  never  see  her  like  again ;  such  an  arm  for  a  band 
age  !  veins  that  seemed  to  invite  the  lancet !  Then  her 
skin  —  smooth  and  white  as  a  gallipot ;  her  mouth  as 
round  and  not  larger  than  that  of  a  penny  vial ;  and 
her  teeth, — none  of  your  sturdy  fixtures, — ache  as  they 
would,  it  was  only  a  small  pull,  and  out  they  came.  I 
believe  I  have  drawn  half  a  score  of  her  dear  pearls. 
[  Weeps.']  But  what  avails  her  beauty  ?  She  has  gone, 
and  left  no  little  babe  to  hang  like  a  label  on  papa's 
neck!" 

So  much  for  speculation  and  theory.     In  practice  it  is 

not  so  bad  after  all.     The  grave  digger  in  Hamlet  has  his 

jokes  and  grim  jests.     We  have  known  many  a  jovial 

sexton ;  and  we  have  heard  clergymen  laugh  heartily  at 

10 


146  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

small  provocation  close  on  the  heel  of  a  cool  calculation 
that  the  great  majority  of  their  fellow-creatures  were 
certain  of  going  straight  to  perdition.  "Why,  then,  should 
not  even  the  doctor  have  his  fun  ?  Nay,  is  it  not  his  duty 
to  be  merry,  by  main  force  if  necessary  ?  Solomon,  who, 
from  his  great  knowledge  of  herbs,  must  have  been  no 
mean  practitioner  for  his  day,  tells  us  that  "  a  merry  heart 
doeth  good  like  a  medicine ; "  and  universal  experience  has 
confirmed  the  truth  of  his  maxim.  Hence  it  is,  doubtless, 
that  we  have  so  many  anecdotes  of  facetious  doctors,  dis 
tributing  their  pills  and  jokes  together,  shaking  at  the 
same  time  the  contents  of  their  vials  and  the  sides  of 
their  patients.  It  is  merely  professional,  a  trick  of  the 
practice,  unquestionably,  in  most  cases ;  but  sometimes  it 
is  a  "  natural  gift,"  like  that  of  the  "  bonesetters,"  and 
"  scrofula  strokers,"  and  "  cancer  curers,"  who  carry  on 
a  sort  of  guerilla  war  with  human  maladies.  Such  we 
•know  to  be  the  case  with  Dr.  Holmes.  He  was  born  for 
•the  "  laughter  cure,"  as  certainly  as  Preisnitz  was  for  the 
"  water  cure,"  and  has  been  quite  as  successful  in  his  way, 
while  his  prescriptions  are  infinitely  more  agreeable. 

The  volume  now  before  us  gives,  in  addition  to  the 
poems  and  lyrics  contained  in  the  two  previous  editions, 
some  hundred  or  more  pages  of  the  later  productions  of 
the  author,  in  the  sprightly  vein  and  marked  by  the  bril 
liant  fancy  and  felicitous  diction  for  which  the  former 


MIRTH   AND    MEDICINE.  147 

were  note  worthy.  His  longest  and  most  elaborate  poem, 
Urania,  is  perhaps  the  best  specimen  of  his  powers.  Its 
general  tone  is  playful  and  humorous ;  but  there  are  pas 
sages  of  great  tenderness  and  pathos.  Witness  the  fol 
lowing,  from  a  description  of  the  city  churchgoers.  The 
whole  compass  of  our  literature  has  few  passages  to 
equal  its  melody  and  beauty. 

"  Down  the  chill  street,  which  winds  in  gloomiest  shade, 
What  marks  betray  yon  solitary  maid  ? 
The  cheek's  red  rose,  that  speaks  of  balmier  air, 
The  Celtic  blackness  of  her  braided  hair  ; 
The  gilded  missal  in  her  kerchief  tied ; 
Poor  Nora,  exile  from  Killarney's  side ! 
Sister  in  toil,  though  born  of  colder  skies, 
That  left  their  azure  in  her  downcast  eyes, 
See  pallid  Margaret,  Labor's  patient  child, 
Scarce  weaned  from  home,  a  nursling  of  the  wild, 
Where  white  Katahdin  o'er  the  horizon  shines, 
And  broad  Penobscot  dashes  through  the  pines  : 
Still  as  she  hastes  her  careful  fingers  hold 
The  unfailing  hymn  book  in  its  cambric  fold : 
Six  days  at  Drudgery's  heavy  wheel  she  stands, 
The  seventh  siceet  morning  folds  her  weary  hands. 
Yes,  child  of  suffering,  thou  mayst  well  be  sure 
He  who  ordained  the  Sabbath  loved  the  poor." 

This  is  but  one  of  many  passages,  showing  that  the 
author  is  capable  of  moving  the  heart  as  well  as  of  tic 
kling  the  fancy.  There  is  no  straining  for  effect ;  simple, 


148  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

natural  thoughts  are  expressed  in  simple  and  perfectly 
transparent  language. 

Terpsichore,  read  at  an  annual  dinner  of  the  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  Society  at  Cambridge,  sparkles  throughout  with 
keen  wit,  quaint  conceits,  and  satire  so  good-natured  that 
the  subjects  of  it  can  enjoy  it  as  heartily  as  their  neigh 
bors.  Witness  this  thrust  at  our  German-English  wri 
ters  :  — 

"  Essays  so  dark,  Champollion  might  despair 
To  guess  what  mummy  of  a  thought  was  there, 
Where  our  poor  English,  striped  with  foreign  phrase, 
Looks  like  a  zebra  in  a  parson's  chaise" 

Or  this  at  our  transcendental  friends:  — 

"  Deluded  infants  !  will  they  never  know 
Some  doubts  must  darken  o'er  the  world  below 
Though  all  the  Platos  of  the  nursery  trail 
Their  clouds  of  glory  at  the  gocart's  tail  ?  " 

The  Lines  on  Lending  an  old  Silver  Punch  Bowl  are 
highly  characteristic.  Nobody  but  Holmes  could  have 
conjured  up  so  many  rare  fancies  in  connection  with  such. 
a  matter.  Hear  him  :  — 

"  This  ancient  silver  bowl  of  mine,  it  tells  of  good  old  times, 
Of  joyous  days,  and  jolly  nights,  and  merry  Christmas  chimes  : 
They  were  a  free  and  jovial  race,  but  honest,  brave,  and  true, 
That  dipped  their  ladle  in  the  punch  when  the  old  bowl  was  new. 


MIRTH    AND    MEDICINE.  149 

A  Spanish  galleon  brought  the  bar,  —  so  runs  the  ancient  tale,  — 
'Twas  hammered  by  an  Antwerp  smith,  whose  arm  was  like  a  flail ; 
And  now  and  then  between  the  strokes,  for  fear  his  strength  should 

fail, 
He  wiped  his  brow  and  quaffed  a  cup  of  good  old  Flemish  ale. 

'Twas  purchased  by  an  English  squire  to  please  his  loving  dame, 
Who  saw  the  cherubs  and  conceived  a  longing  for  the  same  ; 
And  oft  as  on  the  ancient  stock  another  twig  was  found, 
'Twas  filled  with  caudle  spiced  and  hot  and  handed  smoking  round. 

But  changing  hands  it  reached  at  length  —  a  Puritan  divine, 

Who  used  to  follow  Timothy  and  take  a  little  wine, 

But  hated  punch  and  prelacy  ;  and  so  it  was,  perhaps, 

He  went  to  Leyden,  where  he  found  conventicles  and  schnaps. 

And  then,  of  course,  you  know  what's  next — it  left  the  Dutchman's 

shore 
"With  those  that  in  the  Mayflower'  came,  —  a  hundred  souls  and 

more,  — 

Along  with  all  the  furniture  to  fill  their  new  abodes  — 
To  judge  by  what  is  still  on  hand,  at  least  a  hundred  loads. 

'Twas  on  a  dreary  winter's  eve,  the  night  was  closing  dim, 
When  old  Miles  Standish  took  the  bowl  and  filled  it  to  the  brim. 
The  little  captain  stood  and  stirred  the  posset  with  his  sword, 
And  all  his  sturdy  men  at  arms  were  ranged  about  the  board. 

He  poured  the  fiery  Hollands  in  —  the  man  that  never  feared; 
He  took  a  long  and  solemn  draught  and  wiped  his  yellow  beard ; 
And  one  by  one  the  musketeers,  the  men  that  fought  and  prayed, 
All  drank  as  'twere  their  mother's  milk,  and  not  a  man  afraid ! 


150  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

That  night  affrighted  from  his  nest  the  screaming  eagle  flew  ; 
He  heard  the  Pequot's  ringing  whoop,  the  soldier's  wild  halloo  : 
And  there  the  sachem  learned  the  rule  he  taught  to  kith  and  kin, 
'  Run  from  the  white  man  when  you  find  he  smells  of  Hollands 
gin.' " 

In  his  Nux  Postc&natica  he  gives  us  his  reflections  on 
being  invited  to  a  dinner  party,  where  he  was  expected 
to  "  set  the  table  in  a  roar  "  by  reading  funny  verses.  He 
submits  it  to  the  judgment  and  common  sense  of  the  im 
portunate  bearer  of  the  invitation,  that  this  dinner-going, 
ballad-making,  mirth:provoking  habit  is  not  likely  to  ben 
efit  his  reputation  as  a  medical  professor. 

"  Besides,  my  prospects.    Don't  you  know  that  people  won't  employ 
A  man  that  wrongs  his  manliness  by  laughing  like  a  boy, 
And  suspect  the  azure  blossom  that  unfolds  upon  a  shoot, 
As  if  Wisdom's  old  potato  could  not  flourish  at  its  root  ? 

It's  a  very  fine  reflection,  when  you're  etching  out  a  smile 

On  a  copperplate  of  faces  that  would  stretch  into  a  mile, 

That,  what  with  sneers  from  enemies  and  cheapening  shrugs  from 

friends, 
It  will  cost  you  all  the  earnings  that  a  month  of  labor  lends." 

There  are,  as  might  be  expected,  some  commonplace 
pieces  in  the  volume  —  a  few  failures  in  the  line  of 
humor.  The  Spectre  Pig,  the  Dorchester  Giant,  the 
Height  of  the  Ridiculous,  and  one  or  two  others  might  be 
omitted  in  the  next  edition  without  detriment.  They 


MIRTH   AND    MEDICINE.  151 

would  do  well  enough  for  an  amateur  humorist,  but  are 
scarcely  worthy  of  one  who  stands  at  the  head  of  the  pro 
fession. 

It  was  said  of  James  Smith,  of  the  Rejected  Addresses, 
that  "  if  he  had  not  been  a  witty  man,  he  would  have 
been  a  great  man."  Hood's  humor  and  drollery  kept  in  the 
background  the  pathos  and  beauty  of  his  soberer  produc 
tions  ;  and  Dr.  Holmes,  we  suspect,  might  have  ranked 
higher  among  a  large  class  of  readers  than  he  now  does 
had  he  never  written  his  Ballad  of  the  Oysterman,  his 
Comet,  and  his  September  Gale.  Such  lyrics  as  La  Gri- 
sette,  the  Puritan's  Vision,  and  that  unique  compound  of 
humor  and  pathos,  the  Last  Leaf,  show  that  he  possesses 
the  power  of  touching  the  deeper  chords  of  the  heart  and 
of  calling  forth  tears  as  well  as  smiles.  Who  does  not 
feel  the  power  of  this  simple  picture  of  the  old  man  in  the 
last-mentioned  poem? 

"  But  now  he  walks  the  streets, 
And  he  looks  at  all  he  meets, 

Sad  and  wan ; 

And  he  shakes  his  feeble  head, 
That  it  seems  as  if  he  said, 

'  They  are  gone.' 

The  mossy  marbles  rest 
On  the  lips  that  he  has  pressed 
In  their  bloom  ; 


152  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

And  the  names  he  loved  to  hear 
Have  been  carved  for  many  a  year 
On  the  tomb." 

Dr.  Holmes  has  been  likened  to  Thomas  Hood ;  but 
there  is  little  in  common  between  them  save  the  power  of 
combining  fancy  and  sentiment  with  grotesque  drollery  and 
humor.  Hood,  under  all  his  whims  and  oddities,  conceals 
the  vehement  intensity  of  a  reformer.  The  iron  of  the 
world's  wrongs  had  entered  into  his  soul ;  there  is  an 
undertone  of  sorrow  in  his  lyrics ;  his  sarcasm,  directed 
against  oppression  and  bigotry,  at  times  betrays  the  ear 
nestness  of  one  whose  own  withers  have  been  wrung. 
Holmes  writes  simply  for  the  amusement  of  himself  and 
his  readers ;  he  deals  only  with  the  vanity,  the  foibles, 
and  the  minor  faults  of  mankind,  good  naturedly  and 
almost  sympathizingly  suggesting  excuses  for  the  folly 
which  he  tosses  about  on  the  horns  of  his  ridicule.  In 
this  respect  he  differs  widely  from  his  fellow-townsman 
Russell  Lowell,  whose  keen  wit  and  scathing  sarcasm,  in 
the  famous  Biglow  Papers  and  the  notes  of  Parson  Wil 
bur,  strike  at  the  great  evils  of  society  and  deal  with  the 
rank  offences  of  church  and  state.  Hosea  Biglow,  in 
his  way,  is  as  earnest  a  preacher  as  Habakkuk  Muckle- 
wrath  or  Obadiah  Bind-their-kings-in-chains-and-their- 
nobles-in-fetters-of-iron.  His  verse  smacks  of  the  old 
Puritan  flavor.  Holmes  has  a  gentler  mission.  His 


MIRTH    AXD    MEDICINE.  153 

careless,  genial  humor  reminds  us  of  James  Smith  in  his 
Rejected  Addresses  and  Horace  in  London.  Long  may 
he  live  to  make  broader  the  face  of  our  care-ridden  gen 
eration,  and  to  realize  for  himself  the  truth  of  the  wise 
man's  declaration  that  a  "merry  heart  is  a  continual 
feast." 


POPE  NIGHT. 

"  Lay  up  the  fagots  neat  and  trim ; 
Pile  'em  up  higher; 
Set  'em  afire  ! 
The  pope  roasts  us,  and  we'll  roast  him ! " 

Old  Song. 

THE  recent  attempt  of  the  Romish  church  to  reestab 
lish  its  hierarchy  in  Great  Britain,  with  the  new  cardinal, 
Dr.  Wiseman,  at  its  head,  seems  to  have  revived  an  old 
popular  custom,  a  grim  piece  of  Protestant  sport,  which, 
since  the  days  of  Lord  George  Gordon  and  the  "no 
Popery"  mob,  had  very  generally  fallen  into  disuse.  On 
the  5th 'of  the  eleventh  month  of  this  present  year  all 
England  was  traversed  by  processions,  and  lighted  up 
with  bonfires,  in  commemoration  of  the  detection  of  the 
"gunpowder  pfot"  of  Guy  Fawkes  and  the  Papists  in 
1605.  Popes,  bishops,  and  cardinals,  in  straw  and  paste 
board,  were  paraded  through  the  streets  and  burned  amid 
the  shouts  of  the  populace,  a  great  portion  of  whom  would 
have  doubtless  been  quite  as  ready  to  do  the  same  pleas- 

(154) 


POPE    NIGHT.  155 

ant  little  office  for  Henry  of  Exeter,  or  his  grace  of  Can 
terbury,  if  they  could  have  carted  about  and  burned  in 
effigy  a  Protestant  hierarchy  as  safely  as  a  Catholic  one. 

In  this  country  —  where  every  sect  takes  its  own  way, 
undisturbed  by  legal  restrictions,  each  ecclesiastical  tub 
balancing  itself,  as  it  best  may,  on  its  own  bottom,  and 
where  bishops  Catholic  and  bishops  Episcopal,  bishops 
Methodist  and  bishops  Mormon,  jostle  each  other  in  our 
thoroughfares  —  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  we  should 
trouble  ourselves  with  the  matter  at  issue  between  the 
rival  hierarchies  on  the  other  side  of  the  water.  It  is  a 
very  pretty  quarrel,  however,  and  good  must  come  out  of 
it,  as  it  cannot  fail  to  attract  popular  attention  to  the 
shallowness  of  the  spiritual  pretensions  of  both  parties, 
and  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  a  hierarchy  of  any  sort 
has  very  little  in  common  with  the  fishermen  and  tent- 
makers  of  the  New  Testament. 

Pope  Night — the  anniversary  of  the  discovery  of  the 
Papal  incendiary  Guy  Fawkes,  booted  and  spurred,  ready 
to  touch  fire  to  his  powder  train  under  the  Parliament 
House  —  was  celebrated  by  the  early  settlers  of  New 
England,  and  doubtless  afforded  a  good  deal  of  relief  to 
the  younger  plants  of  grace  in  the  Puritan  vineyard.  In 
those  solemn  old  days,  the  recurrence  of  the  powder  plot 
anniversary,  with  its  processions,  hideous  images  of  the 
pope  and  Guy  Fawkes,  its  liberal  potations  of  strong 


156  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

waters,  and  its  blazing  bonfires  reddening  the  wild  No 
vember  hills,  must  have  been  looked  forward  to  with  no 
slight  degree  of  pleasure.  For  one  night  at  least,  the 
cramped  and  smothered  fun  and  mischief  of  the  younger 
generation  were  permitted  to  revel  in  the  wild  extrava 
gance  of  a  Roman  saturnalia  or  the  Christmas  holidays 
of  a  slave  plantation.  Bigotry  —  frowning  upon  the  May 
pole,  with  its  flower  wreaths  and  sportive  revellers,  and 
counting  the  steps  of  the  dancers  as  so  many  steps  towards 
perdition  —  recognized  in  the  grim  farce  of  Guy  Fawkes's 
anniversary  something  of  its  own  lineaments,  smiled  com 
placently  upon  the  riotous  young  actors,  and  opened  its 
close  purse  to  furnish  tar  barrels  to  roast  the  pope,  and 
strong  water  to  moisten  the  throats  of  his  noisy  judges 
and  executioners. 

Up  to  the  time  of  the  revolution  the  powder  plot  was 
duly  commemorated  throughout  New  England.  At  that 
period  the  celebration  of  it  was  discountenanced,  and  in 
many  places  prohibited,  on  the  ground  that  it  was  insulting 
to  our  Catholic  allies  from  France.  In  Coffin's  History  of 
Newbury  it  is  stated  that,  in  1774,  the  town  authorities 
of  Newburyport  ordered  "  that  no  effigies  be  carried  about 
or  exhibited  only  in  the  daytime."  The  last  public  cele 
bration  in  that  town  was  in  the  following  year.  Long 
before  the  close  of  the  last  century  the  exhibitions  of 
Pope  Night  had  entirely  ceased  throughout  the  country, 


POPE   NIGHT.  157 

with,  as  far  as  we  can  learn,  a  solitary  exception.  The 
stranger  who  chances  to  be  travelling  on  the  road  be 
tween  Newburyport  and  Haverhill,  on  the  night  of  the 
5th  of  November,  may  well  fancy  that  an  invasion  is 
threatened  from  the  sea,  or  that  an  insurrection  is  going 
on  inland  ;  for  from  all  the  high  hills  overlooking  the 
river  tall  fires  are  seen  blazing  redly  against  the  cold, 
dark,  autumnal  sky,  surrounded  by  groups  of  young 
men  and  boys  busily  engaged  in  urging  them  with  fresh 
fuel  into  intenser  activity.  To  feed  these  bonfires,  every 
thing  combustible  which  could  be  begged  or  stolen  from 
the  neighboring  villages,  farm  houses,  and  fences  is 
put  in  requisition.  Old  tar  tubs,  purloined  from  the 
ship  builders  of  the  river  side,  and  flour  and  lard  bar 
rels  from  the  village  traders,  are  stored  away  for  days, 
and  perhaps  weeks,  in  the  woods  or  in  the  rain  gullies 
of  the  hills,  in  preparation  for  Pope  Night.  From  the 
earliest  settlement  of  the  two  towns  the  night  of  the 
powder  plot  has  been  thus  celebrated,  with  unbroken 
regularity,  down  to  the  present  time.  The  event  which 
it  once  commemorated  is  probably  now  unknown  to 
most  of  the  juvenile  actors.  The  symbol  lives  on  from 
generation  to  generation  after  the  significance  is  lost;  and 
we  have  seen  the  children  of  our  Catholic  neighbors  as 
busy  as  their  Protestant  playmates  in  collecting,  by  "  hook 
or  by  crook,"  the  materials  for  Pope  Night  bonfires.  "We 


158  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

remember,  on  one  occasion,  walking  out  with  a  gifted  and 
learned  Catholic  friend  to  witness  the  fine  effect  of  the 
illumination  on  the  hills,  and  his  hearty  appreciation  of 
its  picturesque  and  wild  beauty  —  the  busy  groups  in  the 
strong  relief  of  the  fires,  and  the  play  and  corruscation  of 
the  changeful  lights  on  the  bare,  brown  hills,  naked  trees, 
and  autumn  clouds. 

In  addition  to  the  bonfires  on  the  hills,  there  was 
formerly  a  procession  in  the  streets,  bearing  grotesque 
images  of  the  pope,  his  cardinals  and  friars  ;  and  behind 
them  Satan  himself,  a  monster  with  huge  ox  horns  on  his 
head,  and  a  long  tail,  brandishing  his  pitchfork  and 
goading  them  onward.  The  pope  was  generally  furnished 
with  a  movable  head,  which  could  be  turned  round, 
thrown  back,  or  made  to  bow,  like  that  of  a  china  ware 
mandarin.  An  aged  inhabitant  of  the  neighborhood  has 
furnished  us  with  some  fragments  of  the  songs  sung  on 
such  occasions,  probably  the  same  which  our  British 
ancestors  trolled  forth  around  their  bonfires  two  cen 
turies  ago:  — 

"  The  5th  of  November, 
As  you  well  remember, 

Was  gunpowder  treason  and  plot ; 
And  where  is  the  reason 
That  gunpowder  treason 

Should  ever  be  forgot  ? " 


POPE   NIGHT.  159 

"  When  James  the  First  the  sceptre  swayed 
This  hellish  powder  plot  was  laid ; 
They  placed  the  powder  down  below, 
All  for  Old  England's  overthrow. 
Lucky  the  man,  and  happy  the  day, 
That  caught  Guy  Fawkes  in  the  middle  of  his  play  !  " 

"  Hark  !  our  bell  goes  jink,  jink,  jink ; 
Pray,  madam,  pray,  sir,  give  us  something  to  drink ; 
Pray,  madam,  pray,  sir,  if  you'll  something  give, 
We'll  burn  the  dog,  and  not  let  him  live. 
We'll  burn  the  dog  without  his  head, 
And  then  you'll  say  the  dog  is  dead." 

"  Look  here  !  from  Rome 
The  pope  has  come, 

That  fiery  serpent  dire; 
Here's  the  pope  that  we  have  got, 
The  old  promoter  of  the  plot ; 
We'll  stick  a  pitchfork  in  his  back, 

And  throw  him  in  the  fire  !  " 

There  is  a  slight  savor  of  a  Smithfield  roasting  about 
these  lines,  such  as  regaled  the  senses  of  the  virgin 
Queen  or  "bloody  Mary,"  which  entirely  reconciles  us 
to  their  disuse  at  the  present  time.  It  should  be  the 
fervent  prayer  of  all  good  men  that  the  evil  spirit  of 
religious  hatred  and  intolerance,  which  on  the  one  hand 
prompted  the  gunpowder  plot,  and  which  on  the  other  has 
ever  since  made  it  the  occasion  of  reproach  and  persecu- 


160  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

tion  of  an  entire  sect  of  professing  Christians,  may  be  no 
longer  perpetuated.  In  the  matter  of  exclusiveness  and 
intolerance,  none  of  the  older  sects  can  safely  reproach 
each  other ;  and  it  becomes  all  to  hope  and  labor  for  the 
coming  of  that  day  when  the  hymns  of  Cowper  and  the 
Confessions  of  Augustine,  the  humane  philosophy  of  Chan- 
ning  and  the  devout  meditations  of  Thomas  a  Kempis,  the 
simple  essays  of  Woolman  and  the  glowing  periods  of 
Bossuet,  shall  be  regarded  as  the  offspring  of  one  spirit 
and  one  faith  —  lights  of  a  common  altar,  and  precious 
stones  in  the  temple  of  the  one  universal  church. 


THE   BETTER  LAND. 

"THE  shapings  of  our  heavens  are  the  modifications 
of  our  constitution,"  said  Charles  Lamb,  in  his  reply  to 
Southey's  attack  upon  him  in  the  Quarterly  Review. 

He  who  is  infinite  in  love  as  well  as  wisdom  has 
revealed  to  us  the  fact  of  a  future  life,  and  the  fearfully 
important  relation  in  which  the  present  stands  to  it. 
The  actual  nature  and  conditions  of  that  life  he  has  hidden 
from  us — no  chart  of  the  ocean  of  eternity  is  given  us  — 
no  celestial  guide  book  or  geography  defines,  localizes, 
and  prepares  us  for  the  wonders  of  the  spiritual  world. 
Hence  imagination  has  a  wide  field  for  its  speculations, 
which,  so  long  as  they  do  not  positively  contradict  the 
revelation  of  the  Scriptures,  cannot  be  disproved. 

We  naturally  enough  transfer  to  our  idea  of  heaven 
whatever  we  love  and  reverence  on  earth.  Thither  the 
Catholic  carries  in  his  fancy  the  imposing  rites  and  time- 
honored  solemnities  of  his  worship.  There  the  Methodist 
sees  his  love  feasts  and  camp  meetings  in  the  groves  and 
by  the  still  waters  and  green  pastures  of  the  blessed 
11  (161) 


162  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

abodes.  The  Quaker,  in  the  stillness  of  his  self-commun 
ing,  remembers  that  there  was  "  silence  in  heaven."  The 
Churchman,  listening  to  the  solemn  chant  of  vocal  music 
or  the  deep  tones  of  the  organ,  thinks  of  the  song  of  the 
elders  and  the  golden  harps  of  the  New  Jerusalem. 

The  heaven  of  the  northern  nations  of  Europe  was  a 
gross  and  sensual  reflection  of  the  earthly  life  of  a  bar 
barous  and  brutal  people. 

The  Indians  of  North  America  had  a  vague  notion  of 
a  sunset  land,  a  beautiful  paradise  far  in  the  west,  moun 
tains  and  forests  filled  with  deer  and  buffalo,  lakes  and 
streams  swarming  with  fishes  —  the  happy  hunting  ground 
of  souls.  In  a  late  letter  from  a  devoted  missionary 
among  the  western  Indians  (Paul  Blohm,  a  converted 
Jew)  we  have  noticed  a  beautiful  illustration  of  this  be 
lief.  Near  the  Omahaw  mission  house,  on  a  high  bluff, 
was  a  solitary  Indian  grave.  "  One  evening,"  says  the 
missionary,  "having  come  home  with  some  cattle  which  I 
had  been  seeking,  I  heard  some  one  wailing ;  and,  looking 
in  the  direction  from  whence  it  proceeded,  I  found  it  to  be 
from  the  grave  near  our  house.  In  a  moment  after  a 
mourner  rose  up  from  a  kneeling  or  lying  posture,  and, 
turning  to  the  setting  sun,  stretched  forth  his  arms  in 
prayer  and  supplication  with  an  intensity  and  earnestness 
as  though  he  would  detain  the  splendid  luminary  from 
running  his  course.  With  his  body  leaning  forward  and 


THE    BETTER    LAND.  163 

his  arms  stretched  towards  the  sun,  he  presented  a  most 
striking  figure  of  sorrow  and  petition.  It  was  solemnly 
awful.  He  seemed  to  me  to  be  one  of  the  ancients  come 
forth  to  teach  me  how  to  pray." 

A  venerable  and  worthy  New  England  clergyman,  on 
his  death  bed,  just  before  the  close  of  his  life,  declared  that 
he  was  only  conscious  of  an  awfully  solemn  and  intense 
curiosity  to  know  the  great  secret  of  death  and  eternity. 

The  excellent  Dr.  Nelson,  of  Missouri,  was  one  who, 
while  on  earth,  seemed  to  live  another  and  higher  life  in 
the  contemplation  of  infinite  purity  and  happiness.  A 
friend  once  related  an  incident  concerning  him  which 
made  a  deep  impression  upon  my  mind.  They  had  been 
travelling  through  a  summer's  forenoon  in  the  prairie,  and 
had  laid  down  to  rest  beneath  a  solitary  tree.  The  doctor 
lay  for  a  long  time,  silently  looking  upwards  through  the 
openings  of  the  boughs  into  the  still  heavens,  when  he 
repeated  the  following  lines,  in  a  low  tone,  as  if  commun 
ing  with  himself  in  view  of  the  wonders  he  described :  — 

"  0  the  joys  that  are  there  mortal  eye  hath  not  seen  ! 
0  the  songs  they  sing  there,  with  hosannas  between ! 
O  the  thrice-blessed  song  of  the  Lamb  and  of  Moses  ! 
O  brightness  on  brightness  !  the  pearl  gate  uncloses  ! 
0  white  wings  of  angels  !  0  fields  white  with  roses  ! 
0  white  tents  of  peace,  where  the  rapt  soul  reposes  ! 
0  the  waters  so  still,  and  the  pastures  so  green  !  " 


164  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

The  brief  hints  afforded  us  by  the  sacred  writings 
concerning  the  better  land  are  inspiring  and  beautiful. 
Eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  the  ear  heard,  neither  hath  it 
entered  into  the  heart  of  man  to  conceive  of  the  good  in 
store  for  the  righteous.  Heaven  is  described  as  a  quiet 
habitation  —  a  rest  remaining  for  the  people  of  God. 
Tears  shall  be  wiped  away  from  all  eyes ;  there  shall  be 
no  more  death,  neither  sorrow  nor  crying,  neither  shall 
there  be  any  more  pain.  To  how  many  death  beds  have 
these  words  spoken  peace !  How  many  failing  hearts 
have  gathered  strength  from  them  to  pass  through  the 
dark  valley  of  shadows ! 

Yet  we  should  not  forget  that  "  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
is  within ; "  that  it  is  the  state  and  affections  of  the  soul, 
the  answer  of  a  good  conscience,  the  sense  of  harmony 
with  God,  a  condition  of  time  as  well  as  of  eternity. 
What  is  really  momentous  and  all-important  with  us  is 
the  present,  by  which  the  future  is  shaped  and  colored. 
A  mere  change  of  locality  cannot  alter  the  actual  and 
intrinsic  qualities  of  the  soul.  Guilt  and  remorse  would 
make  the  golden  streets  of  paradise  intolerable  as  the 
burning  marl  of  the  infernal  abodes;  while  purity  and 
innocence  would  transform  hell  itself  into  heaven. 


THE  POETRY  OF  THE  NORTH. 

THE  Democratic  Review  not  long  since  contained  a 
singularly  wild  and  spirited  poem,  entitled  the  Norse 
man's  Ride,  in  which  the  writer  appears  to  have  very 
happily  blended  the  boldness  and  sublimity  of  the  heathen 
saga  with  the  grace  and  artistic  skill  of  the  literature  of 
civilization.  The  poetry  of  the  Northmen,  like  their  lives, 
was  bold,  defiant,  and  full  of  a  rude,  untamed  energy. 
It  was  inspired  by  exhibitions  of  power  rather  than  of 
beauty.  Its  heroes  were  beastly  revellers  or  cruel  and 
ferocious  plunderers ;  its  heroines  unsexed  hoidens,  play 
ing  the  ugliest  tricks  with  their  lovers,  and  repaying 
slights  with  bloody  revenge  —  very  dangerous  and  un 
satisfactory  companions  for  any  other  than  the  fire-eating 
Viking?,  and  red-handed,  unwashed  Berserkars.  Signifi 
cant  of  a  religion  which  reverenced  the  strong  rather 
than  the  good,  and  which  regarded  as  meritorious  the  un 
restrained  indulgence  of  the  passions,  it  delighted  to  sing 
the  praises  of  some  coarse  debauch  or  pitiless  slaughter. 
The  voice  of  its  scalds  was  often  but  the  scream  of  the 

(165) 


166  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

carrion  bird,  or  the  howl  of  the  wolf,  scenting  human 
blood :  — 

"  Unlike  to  human  sounds  it  came ; 

Unmixed,  unmelodized  with  breath  ; 
But  grinding  through  some  scrannel  frame, 
Creaked  from  the  bony  lungs  of  Death." 

Its  gods  were  brutal  giant  forces,  patrons  of  war,  rob 
bery,  and  drunken  revelry  ;  its  heaven  a  vast  cloud-built 
alehouse,  where  ghostly  warriors  drank  from  the  skulls 
of  their  victims ;  its  hell  a  frozen  horror  of  desolation  and 
darkness,  —  all  that  the  gloomy  northern  imagination  could 
superadd  to  the  repulsive  and  frightful  features  of  arctic 
scenery,  —  volcanoes  spouting  fire  through  craters  rimmed 
with  perpetual  frost,  boiling  caldrons  flinging  their  fierce 
jets  high  into  the  air,  and  huge  jokuls,  or  ice  mountains, 
loosened  and  upheaved  by  volcanic  agencies,  crawling 
slowly  seaward,  like  misshapen  monsters  endowed  with 
life  —  a  region  of  misery  unutterable,  to  be  avoided  only 
by  diligence  in  robbery  and  courage  in  murder. 

What  a  work  had  Christianity  to  perform  upon  such  a 
people  as  the  Icelanders,  for  instance,  of  the  tenth  cen 
tury  —  to  substitute  in  rude,  savage  minds  the  idea  of 
its  benign  and  gentle  Founder  for  that  of  the  Thor  and 
Woden  of  Norse  mythology ;  the  forgiveness,  charity,  and 
humility  of  the  gospel  for  the  revenge,  hatred,  and  pride 
inculcated  by  the  eddas.  And  is  it  not  one  of  the 


THE  POETRY  OF  THE  NORTH.          167 

strongest  proofs  of  the  divine  life  and  power  of  that  gos 
pel,  that,  under  its  influence,  the  hard  and  cruel  Norse 
heart  has  been  so  softened  and  humanized  that  at  this 
moment  one  of  the  best  illustrations  of  the  peaceful  and 
gentle  virtues  which  it  inculcates  is  afforded  by  the 
descendants  of  the  sea  kings  and  robbers  of  the  middle 
centuries?  No  one  can  read  the  accounts  which  such 
travellers  as  Sir  George  Mackenzie  and  Dr.  Henderson 
have  given  us  of  the  peaceful  disposition,  social  equality, 
hospitality,  industry,  intellectual  cultivation,  morality,  and 
habitual  piety  of  the  Icelanders,  without  a  grateful  sense 
of  the  adaptation  of  Christianity  to  the  wants  of  our  race, 
and  of  its  ability  to  purify,  elevate,  and  transform  the 
worst  elements  of  human  character.  In  Iceland  Christi 
anity  has  performed  its  work  of  civilization,  unobstructed 
by  that  commercial  cupidity  which  has  caused  nations 
more  favored  in  respect  to  soil  and  climate  to  lapse  into 
an  idolatry  scarcely  less  debasing  and  cruel  than  that 
which  preceded  the  introduction  of  the  gospel.  Trial  by 
combat  was  abolished  in  1001,  and  the  penalty  of  the 
imaginary  crime  of  witchcraft  was  blotted  from  the  statutes 
of  the  island  nearly  half  a  century  before  it  ceased  to  dis 
grace  those  of  Great  Britain.  So  entire  has  been  the 
change  wrought  in  the  sanguinary  and  cruel  Norse  char 
acter  that  at  the  present  day  no  Icelander  can  be  found, 
who,  for  any  reward,  will  undertake  the  office  of  execu- 


168  RECREATIONS    AffD    MISCELLANIES. 

tioner.  The  scalds,  who  went  forth  to  battle,  cleaving 
the  skulls  of  their  enemies  with  the  same  skilful  hands 
which  struck  the  harp  at  the  feast,  have  given  place  to 
Christian  bards  and  teachers,  who,  like  Thorlakson,  whom 
Dr.  Henderson  found  toiling  cheerfully  with  his  beloved 
parishioners  in  the  hay  harvest  of  the  brief  arctic  sum 
mer,  combine  with  the  vigorous  diction  and  robust  thought 
of  their  predecessors  the  warm  and  genial  humanity  of  a 
religion  of  love  and  the  graces  and  amenities  of  a  high 
civilization. 

But  we  have  wandered  somewhat  aside  from  our  pur 
pose,  which  was  simply  to  introduce  the  following  poem, 
which,  in  the  boldness  of  its  tone  and  vigor  of  language, 
reminds  us  of  the  Sword  Chant,  the  Wooing  Song,  and 
other  rhymed  sagas  of  Motherwell :  — 

THE  NORSEMAN'S  RIDE. 

BY  BAYARD  TAYLOR. 

The  frosty  fires  of  northern  starlight 

Gleamed  on  the  glittering  snow, 
And  through  the  forest's  frozen  branches 

The  shrieking  winds  did  blow  ; 
A  floor  of  blue  and  icy  marble 

Kept  Ocean's  pulses  still, 
When,  in  the  depths  of  dreary  midnight, 

Opened  the  burial  hill. 


THE  POETRY  OF  THE  NORTH.          169 

Then,  while  the  low  and  creeping  shudder 

Thrilled  upward  through  the  ground, 
The  Norseman  came,  as  armed  for  battle, 

In  silence  from  his  mound  — 
He  who  was  mourned  in  solemn  sorrow 

By  many  a  swordsman  bold, 
And  harps  that  wailed  along  the  ocean, 

Struck  by  the  scalds  of  old. 

Sudden  a  swift  and  silver  shadow 

Came  up  from  out  the  gloom  — 
A  charger  that,  with  hoof  impatient, 

Stamped  noiseless  by  the  tomb. 
"  Ha  !   Surtur,*  let  me  hear  thy  tramping, 

My  fiery  northern  steed, 
That,  sounding  through  the  stormy  forest, 

Bade  the  bold  Viking  heed !  " 

He  mounted  ;  like  a  northlight  streaking 

The  sky  with  flaming  bars, 
They,  on  the  winds  so  wildly  shrieking, 

Shot  up  before  the  stars. 
"  Is  this  thy  mane,  my  fearless  Surtur, 

That  streams  against  my  breast  ? 
Is  this  thy  neck,  that  curve  of  moonlight 

Which  Helva's  hand  caressed  ?  , 

"  Xo  misty  breathing  strains  thy  nostril ; 
Thine  eye  shines  blue  and  cold  ; 

*  The  name  of  the  Scandinavian  god  of  fire. 


170  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

Yet  mounting  up  our  airy  pathway 

I  see  thy  hoofs  of  gold. 
Not  lighter  o'er  the  springing  rainbow 

Walhalla's  gods  repair 
Than  we  in  sweeping  journey  over 

The  bending  bridge  of  air. 

"  Far,  far  around  star-gleams  are  sparkling 

Amid  the  twilight  space  ; 
And  Earth,  that  lay  so  cold  and  darkling, 

Has  veiled  her  dusky  face. 
Are  those  the  Nornes  that  beckon  onward 

As  if  to  Odin's  bo'ard, 
Where  by  the  hands  of  warriors  nightly 

The  sparkling  mead  is  poured  ? 

"  'Tis  Skuld :  *  her  star-eye  speaks  the  glory 

That  wraps  the  mighty  soul, 
When  on  its  hinge  of  music  opens 

The  gateway  of  the  pole ; 
When  Odin's  warder  leads  the  hero 

To  banquets  never  o'er, 
And  Freya's  f  glances  fill  the  bosom 

With  sweetness  evermore. 

"  On  !  on  !  the  northern  lights  are  streaming 
In  brightness  like  the  morn, 


*  The  Nome  of  the  future. 

t  Freya,  the  northern  goddess  of  lore. 


THE  POETRY  OF  THE  NORTH.          171 

And  pealing  far  amid  the  vastness 

I  hear  the  gyallarhorn.* 
The  heart  of  starry  space  is  throbbing 

"With  songs  of  minstrels  old  ; 
And  now  on  high  Walhalla's  portal 

Gleam  Surtur's  hoofs  of  gold." 

*  The  horn  blown  by  the  watchers  on  the  rainbow,  the  bridge  oyer 
which  the  gods  pass  in  northern  mythology. 


THE   BOY   CAPTIVES. 

AN   INCIDENT    OF   THE    INDIAN   WAR    OF    1695. 

THE  township  of  Haverhill,  even  as  late  as  the  close 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  was  a  frontier  settlement,  oc 
cupying  an  advanced  position  in  the  great  wilderness, 
which,  unbroken  by  the  clearing  of  a  white  man,  extend 
ed  from  the  Merrimac  River  to  the  French  villages  on 
the  St.  Franfois.  A  tract  of  twelve  miles  on  the  river 
and  three  or  four  northwardly  was  occupied  by  scattered 
settlers,  while  in  the  centre  of  the  town  a  compact  village 
had  grown  up.  In  the  immediate  vicinity  there  were  but 
few  Indians,  and  these  generally  peaceful  and  inoffensive. 
On  the  breaking  out  of  the  Narragansett  war,  the  inhab 
itants  had  erected  fortifications  and  taken  other  measures 
for  defence  ;  but,  with  the  possible  exception  of  one  man 
who  was  found  slain  in  the  woods  in  1676,  none  of  the 
inhabitants  were  molested  ;  and  it  was  not  until  about  the 
year  1689  that  the  safety  of  the  settlement  was  seriously 
threatened.  Three  persons  were  killed  in  that  year.  In 

(172) 


THE    BOY    CAPTIVES.  173 

1690  six  garrisons  were  established  in  different  parts  of 
the  town,  with  a  small  company  of  soldiers  attached  to  each. 
Two  of  these  houses  are  still  standing.  They  were  built 
of  brick,  two  stories  high,  with  a  single  outside  door,  so 
small  and  narrow  that  but  one  person  could  enter  at  a 
time ;  the  windows  few,  and  only  about  two  and  a  half 
feet  long  by  eighteen  inches  wide,  with  thick  diamond 
glass  secured  with  lead,  and  crossed  inside  with  bars  of 
iron.  The  basement  had  but  two  rooms,  and  the  cham 
ber  was  entered  by  a  ladder  instead  of  stairs ;  so  that 
the  inmates,  if  driven  thither,  could  cut  off  communica 
tion  with  the  rooms  below.  Many  private  houses  were 
strengthened  and  fortified.  We  remember  one  familiar 
to  our  boyhood  —  a  venerable  old  building  of  wood,  with 
brick  between  the  weather  boards  and  ceiling,  with  a  mas 
sive  balustrade  over  the  door,  constructed  of  oak  timber 
and  plank,  with  holes  through  the  latter  for  firing  upon 
assailants.  The  door  opened  upon  a  stone-paved  hall,  or 
entry,  leading  into  the  huge  single  room  of  the  basement, 
which  was  lighted  by  two  small  windows,  the  ceiling 
black  with  the  smoke  of  a  century  and  a  half;  a  huge 
fireplace,  calculated  for  eight-feet  wood,  occupying  one 
entire  side ;  while,  overhead,  suspended  from  the  timbers 
or  on  shelves  fastened  to  them,  were  household  stores, 
farming  utensils,  fishing  rods,  guns,  bunches  of  herbs 
gathered  perhaps  a  century  ago,  strings  of  dried  apples 


174  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

and  pumpkins,  links  of  mottled  sausages,  spareribs,  and 
flitches  of  bacon  ;  the  firelight  of  an  evening  dimly  re 
vealing  the  checked  woollen  coverlet  of  the  bed  in  one 
far-off  corner,  while  in  another 

" the  pewter  plates  on  the  dresser 

Caught  and  reflected  the  flame  as  shields  of  armies  the  sunshine." 

Tradition  has  preserved  many  incidents  of  life  in  the 
garrisons.  In  times  of  unusual  peril  the  settlers  generally 
resorted  at  night  to  the  fortified  houses,  taking  thither 
their  flocks  and  herds  and  such  household  valuables  as 
were  most  likely  to  strike  the  fancy  or  minister  to 
the  comfort  or  vanity  of  the  heathen  marauders.  False 
alarms  were  frequent.  The  smoke  of  a  distant  fire,  the 
bark  of  a  dog  in  the  deep  woods,  a  stump  or  bush  taking 
in  the  uncertain  light  of  stars  and  moon  the  appear 
ance  of  a  man,  were  sufficient  to  spread  alarm  through 
the  entire  settlement  and  to  cause  the  armed  men  of  the 
garrison  to  pass  whole  nights  in  sleepless  watching.  It 
is  said  that  at  Haselton's  garrison  house  the  sentinel  on 
duty  saw,  as  he  thought,  an  Indian  inside  of  the  paling 
which  surrounded  the  building,  and  apparently  seeking  to 
gain  an  entrance.  He  promptly  raised  his  musket  and 
fired  at  the  intruder,  alarming  thereby  the  entire  garrison. 
The  women  and  children  left  their  beds,  and  the  men 
seized  their  guns  and  commenced  firing  on  the  suspicious 


THE    BOY    CAPTIVES.  175 

object ;  but  it  seemed  to  bear  a  charmed  life  and  remained 
unharmed.  As  the  morning  dawned,  however,  the  mys 
tery  was  solved  by  the  discovery  of  a  black  quilted  petti 
coat  hanging  on  the  clothes'  line,  completely  riddled  with 
balls. 

As  a  matter  of  course,  under  circumstances  of  perpetual 
alarm  and  frequent  peril,  the  duty  of  cultivating  their 
fields,  and  gathering  their  harvests,  and  working  at  their 
mechanical  avocations  was  dangerous  and  difficult  to  the 
settlers.  One  instance  will  serve  as  an  illustration.  At 
the  garrison  house  of  Thomas  Dustin,  the  husband  of  the 
far-famed  Mary  Dustin,  (who,  while  a  captive  of  the  In 
dians,  and  maddened  by  the  murder  of  her  infant  child, 
killed  and  scalped,  with  the  assistance  of  a  young  boy,  the 
entire  band  of  her  captors,  ten  in  number,)  the  business  of 
brickmaking  was  carried  on.  The  pits  where  the  clay  was 
found  were  only  a  few  rods  from  the  house  ;  yet  no  man 
ventured  to  bring  the  clay  to  the  yard  within  the  enclo 
sure  without  the  attendance  of  a  file  of  soldiers.  An  anec 
dote  relating  to  this  garrison  has  been  handed  down  to 
the  present  time.  Among  its  inmates  were  two  young 
cousins,  Joseph  and  Mary  Whittaker ;  the  latter  a  merry, 
handsome  girl,  relieving  the  tedium  of  garrison  duty  with 
her  lighthearted  mirthfulness  and 

"  Making  a  sunshine  in  that  shady  place." 


176  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

Joseph,  in  the  intervals  of  his  labors  in  the  double  ca 
pacity  of  brickmaker  and  man  at  arras,  was  assiduous  ia 
his  attentions  to  his  fair  cousin,  who  was  not  inclined  to 
encourage  him.  Growing  desperate,  he  threatened  one 
evening  to  throw  himself  into  the  garrison  well.  His 
threat  only  called  forth  the  laughter  of  his  mistress ;  and, 
bidding  her  farewell,  he  proceeded  to  put  it  in  execu 
tion.  On  reaching  the  well  he  stumbled  over  a  log ; 
whereupon,  animated  by  a  happy  idea,  he  dropped  the 
wood  into  the  water  instead  of  himself,  and,  hiding  be 
hind  the  curb,  awaited  the  result.  Mary,  who  had  been 
listening  at  the  door,  and  who  had  not  believed  her 
lover  capable  of  so  rash  an  act,  heard  the  sudden  plunge 
of  the  wooden  Joseph.  She  ran  to  the  well,  and,  lean 
ing  over  the  curb  and  peering  down  the  dark  opening, 
cried  out,  in  tones  of  anguish  and  remorse,  "  0  Joseph,  if 
you're  in  the  land  of  the  living,  I'll  have  you !  "  "  I'll 
take  ye  at  your  word,"  answered  Joseph,  springing  up 
from  his  hiding-place  and  avenging  himself  for  her  coy 
ness  and  coldness  by  a  hearty  embrace. 

Our  own  paternal  ancestor,  owing  to  religious  scruples 
in  the  matter  of  taking  arms  even  for  defence  of  life  and 
property,  refused  to  leave  his  undefended  house  and  en 
ter  the  garrison.  The  Indians  frequently  came  to  his 
house ;  and  the  family  more  than  once  in  the  night  heard 
them  whispering  under  the  windows,  and  saw  them  put 


THE    BOY    CAPTIVES.  177 

their  copper  faces  to  the  glass  to  take  a  view  of  the  apart 
ments.  Strange  as  it  may  seem,  they  never  offered  any 
injury  or  insult  to  the  inmates. 

In  1695  the  township  was  many  times  molested  by 
Indians  and  several  persons  were  killed  and  wounded. 
Early  in  the  fall  a  small  party  made  their  appearance  in 
the  northerly  part  of  the  town,  where,  finding  two  boys  at 
work  in  an  open  field,  they  managed  to  surprise  and  cap 
ture  them,  and,  without  committing  further  violence,  re 
treated  through  the  woods  to  their  homes  on  the  shore 
of  Lake  "Wmnipiseogee.  Isaac  Bradley,  aged  fifteen,  was 
a  small  but  active  and  vigorous  boy ;  his  companion  in 
captivity,  Joseph  Whittaker,  was  only  eleven,  yet  quite  as 
large  in  size,  and  heavier  in  his  movements.  After  a 
hard  and  painful  journey  they  arrived  at  the  lake,  and 
were  placed  in  an  Indian  family,  consisting  of  a  man  and 
squaw  and  two  or  three  children.  Here  they  soon  ac 
quired  a  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  Indian  tongue  to  en 
able  them  to  learn  from  the  conversation  carried  on  in 
their  presence  that  it  was  designed  to  take  them  to  Can 
ada  in  the  spring.  This  discovery  was  a  painful  one. 
Canada,  the  land  of  Papist  priests  and  bloody  Indians, 
was  the  especial  terror  of  the  New  England  settlers,  and 
the  anathema  maranatha  of  Puritan  pulpits.  Thither  the 
Indians  usually  hurried  their  captives,  where  they  com 
pelled  them  to  work  in  their  villages  or  sold  them  to  the 
12 


178  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

French  planters.  Escape  from  thence  through  a  deep 
wilderness,  and  across  lakes,  and  mountains,  and  almost 
impassable  rivers,  without  food  or  guide,  was  regarded  as 
an  impossibility.  The  poor  boys,  terrified  by  the  pros 
pect  of  being  carried  still  farther  from  their  home  and 
friends,  began  to  dream  of  escaping  from  their  masters 
before  they  started  for  Canada.  It  was  now  winter ;  it 
would  have  been  little  short  of  madness  to  have  chosen 
for  flight  that  season  of  bitter  cold  and  deep  snows.  Ow 
ing  to  exposure  and  want  of  proper  food  and  clothing, 
Isaac,  the  eldest  of  the  boys,  was  seized  with  a  violent 
fever,  from  which  he  slowly  recovered  in  the  course  of 
the  winter.  His  Indian  mistress  was  as  kind  to  him  as 
her  circumstances  permitted  —  procuring  medicinal  herbs 
and  roots  for  her  patient,  and  tenderly  watching  over  him 
in  the  long  winter  nights.  Spring  came  at  length ;  the 
snows  melted ;  and  the  ice  was  broken  up  on  the  lake. 
The  Indians  began  to  make  preparations  for  journeying 
to  Canada ;  and  Isaac,  who  had  during  his  sickness  de 
vised  a  plan  of  escape,  saw  that  the  time  of  putting  it  in 
execution  had  come.  On  the  evening  before  he  was 
to  make  the  attempt  he  for  the  first  time  informed  his 
younger  companion  of  his  design,  and  told  him,  if  he  in 
tended  to  accompany  him,  he  must  be  awake  at  the  time 
appointed.  The  boys  laid  down  as  usual  in  the  wigwam 
in  the  midst  of  the  family.  Joseph  soon  fell  asleep  ;  but 


THE    BOY    CAPTIVES.  179 

Isaac,  fully  sensible  of  the  danger  and  difficulty  of  the 
enterprise  before  him,  lay  awake,  watchful  for  his  oppor 
tunity.  About  midnight  he  rose,  cautiously  stepping  over 
the  sleeping  forms  of  the  family,  and  securing,  as  he  went, 
his  Indian  master's  flint,  steel,  and  tinder,  and  a  small 
quantity  of  dry  moose  meat  and  corn  bread.  He  then 
carefully  awakened  his  companion,  who,  starting  up,  for 
getful  of  the  cause  of  his  disturbance,  asked  aloud,  "  What 
do  you  want  ?  "  The  savages  began  to  stir  ;  and  Isaac, 
trembling  with  fear  of  detection,  laid  down  again  and  pre 
tended  to  be  asleep.  After  waiting  a  while  he  again 
rose,  satisfied,  from  the  heavy  breathing  of  the  Indians, 
that  they  were  all  sleeping ;  and  fearing  to  awaken  Jo 
seph  a  second  time,  lest  he  should  again  hazard  all  by  his 
thoughtlessness,  he  crept  softly  out  of  the  wigwam.  He 
had  proceeded  but  a  few  rods  when  he  heard  footsteps 
behind  him;  and,  supposing  himself  pursued,  he  hurried 
into  the  woods,  casting  a  glance  backward.  What  was 
his  joy  to  see  his  young  companion  running  after  him  ! 
They  hastened  on  in  a  southerly  direction  as  nearly  as 
they  could  determine,  hoping  to  reach  their  distant  home. 
When  daylight  appeared  they  found  a  large  hollow  log, 
into  which  -they  crept  for  concealment,  wisely  judging 
that  they  would  be  hotly  pursued  by  their  Indian  cap 
tors. 

Their  sagacity  was  by  no  means  at  fault.     The  Indians, 


180  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

missing  their  prisoners  in  the  morning,  started  off  in  pur 
suit  with  their  dogs.  As  the  young  boys  lay  in  the  log 
they  could  hear  the  whistle  of  the  Indians  and  the  barking 
of  dogs  upon  their  track.  It  was  a  trying  moment ;  and 
even  the  stout  heart  of  the  elder  boy  sank  within  him  as 
the  dogs  came  up  to  the  log  and  set  up  a  loud  bark  of 
discovery.^  But  his  presence  of  mind  saved  him.  He 
spoke  in  a  low  tone  to  the  dogs,  who,  recognizing  his  fa 
miliar  voice,  wagged  their  tails  with  delight  and  ceased 
barking.  He  then  threw  to  them  the  morsel  of  moose 
meat  he  had  taken  from  the  wigwam.  While  the  dogs 
were  thus  diverted  the  Indians  made  their  appearance. 
The  boys  heard  the  light,  stealthy  sound  of  their  mocca- 
sons  on  the  leaves.  They  passed  close  to  the  log ;  and 
the  dogs,  having  devoured  their  moose  meat,  trotted  after 
their  masters.  Through  a  crevice  in  the  log  the  boys 
looked  after  them  and  saw  them  disappear  in  the  thick 
woods.  They  remained  in  their  covert  until  night,  when 
they  started  again  on  their  long  journey,  taking  a  new 
route  to  avoid  the  Indians.  At  daybreak  they  again  con 
cealed  themselves,  but  travelled  the  next  night  and  day 
without  resting.  By  this  time  they  had  consumed  all  the 
bread  which  they  had  taken,  and  were  fajnting  from 
hunger  and  weariness^.  Just  at  the  close  of  the  third  day 
they  were  providentially  enabled  to  kill  a  pigeon  and  a 
small  tortoise,  a  part  of  which  they  ate  raw,  not  daring 


THE   BOY   CAPTIVES.  181 

to  make  a  fire,  which  might  attract  the  watchful  eyes  of 
savages.  On  the  sixth  day  they  struck  upon  an  old  In 
dian  path,  and,  following  it  until  night,  came  suddenly 
upon  a  camp  of  the  enemy.  Deep  in  the  heart  of  the 
forest,  under  the  shelter  of  a  ridge  of  land  heavily  tim 
bered,  a  great  fire  of  logs  and  brushwood  was  burning ; 
and  around  it  the  Indians  sat,  eating  their  moose  meat 
and  smoking  their  pipes. 

The  poor  fugitives,  starving,  weary,  and  chilled  by  the 
cold  spring  blasts,  gazed  down  upon  the  ample  fire,  and 
the  savory  meats  which  the  squaws  were  cooking  by  it, 
but  felt  no  temptation  to  purchase  warmth  and  food  by 
surrendering  themselves  to  captivity.  Death  in  the  forest 
seemed  preferable.  They  turned  and  fled  back  upon  their 
track,  expecting  every  moment  to  hear  the  yells  of  pur 
suers.  The  morning  found  them  seated  on  the  bank  of  a 
small  stream,  their  feet  torn  and  bleeding  and  their  bodies 
emaciated.  The  elder,  as  a  last  effort,  made  search  for 
roots,  and  fortunately  discovered  a  few  ground  nuts, 
(glicine  apios,)  which  served  to  refresh  in  some  degree 
himself  and  his  still  weaker  companion.  As  they  stood 
together  by  the  stream,  hesitating  and  almost  despairing, 
it  occurred  to  Isaac  that  the  rivulet  might  lead  to  a  larger 
stream  of  water,  and  that  to  the  sea  and  the  white  settle 
ments  near  it;  and  he  resolved  to  follow  it.  They  again Jf: 
began  their  painful  march  ;  the  day  passed,  and  the%night 


182  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

once  more  overtook  them.  When  the  eighth  morning 
dawned  the  younger  of  the  boys  found  himself  unable  to 
rise  from  his  bed  of  leaves.  Isaac  endeavored  to  encour 
age  him,  dug  roots  and  procured  water  for  him ;  but  the 
poor  lad  was  utterly  exhausted.  He  had  no  longer  heart 
or  hope.  The  elder  boy  laid  him  on  leaves  and  dry  «;rass 
at  the'  foot  of  a  tree,  and  with  a  heavy  heart  bade  him 
farewell.  Alone  he  slowly  and  painfully  proceeded  down 
the  stream,  now  greatly  increased  in  size  by  tributary 
rivulets.  On  the  top  of  a  hill  he  climbed  with  difficulty 
into  a  tree,  and  saw  in  the  distance  what  seemed  to  be  a 
clearing  and  a  newly-raised  frame  building.  Hopeful  and 
rejoicing,  he  turned  back  to  his  young  companion,  told 
him  what  he  had  seen,  and,  after  chafing  his  limbs  a  while, 
got  him  upon  his  feet.  Sometimes  supporting  him,  and 
at  others  carrying  him  on  his  back,  the  heroic  boy  stag 
gered  towards  the  clearing.  On  reaching  it  he  found  it 
deserted,  and  was  obliged  to  continue  his  journey.  To 
wards  night  signs  of  civilization  began  to  appear  —  the 
heavy,  continuous  roar  of  water  was  heard;  and,  presently 
emerging  from  the  forest,  he  saw  a  great  river  dashing 
in  white  foam  down  precipitous  rocks,  and  on  its  bank  the 
gray  walls  of  a  huge  stone  building,  with  flankers,  pali 
sades,  and  moat,  over  which  the  British  flag  was  flying. 
This  was  the  famous  Saco  Fort,  built  by  Governor  Phips 
two  years  before,  just  below  the  falls  of  the  Saco  River. 


THE    EOT    CAPTIVES.  183 

The  soldiers  of  the  garrison  gave  the  poor  fellows  a  kindly 
welcome.  Joseph,  who  was  scarcely  alive,  lay  for  a  long 
time  sick  in  the  fort ;  but  Isaac  soon  regained  his  strength 
and  set  out  for  his  home  in  Haverhill,  which  he  had  the 
good  fortune  to  arrive  at  in  safety. 

Amidst  the  stirring  excitements  of  the  present  day, 
when  every  thrill  of  the  electric  wire  conveys  a  new 
subject  for  thought  or  action  to  a  generation  as  eager  as 
the  ancient  Athenians  for  some  new  thing,  simple  legends 
of  the  past  like  that  which  we  have  transcribed  have 
undoubtedly  lost  in  a  great  degree  their  interest.  The 
lore  of  the  fireside  is  becoming  obsolete,  and  with  the 
octogenarian  few  who  still  linger  among  us  will  perish  the 
unwritten  history  of  border  life  in  New  England. 


THE   BLACK   MEN  IN  THE   REVOLUTION 
AND   WAR  OF   1812. 

THE  return  of  the  festival  of  our  national  independ 
ence  has  called  our  attention  to  a  matter  which  has  been 
very  carefully  kept  out  of  sight  by  orators  and  toast 
drinkers.  We  allude  to  the  participation  of  colored  men 
in  the  great  struggle  for  American  freedom.  It  is  not  in 
accordance  with  our  taste  or  our  principles  to  eulogize  the 
shedders  of  blood  even  in  a  cause  of  acknowledged  justice ; 
but  when  we  see  a  whole  nation  doing  honor  to  the 
memories  of  one  class  of  its  defenders  to  the  total  neglect 
of  another  class,  who  had  the  misfortune  to  be  of  darker 
complexion,  we  cannot  forego  the  satisfaction  of  inviting 
notice  to  certain  historical  facts  which  for  the  last  half 
century  have  been  quietly  elbowed  aside,  as  no  more 
deserving  of  a  place  in  patriotic  recollection  than  the 
descendants  of  the  men  to  whom  the  facts  in  question  re 
late  have  to  a  place  in  a  Fourth  of  July  procession. 

Of  the  services  and  sufferings  of  the  colored  soldiers 
of  the  revolution  no  attempt  has,  to  our  knowledge,  been 

(184) 


THE  BLACK  MEN  IN  THE  REVOLUTION.      185 

made  to  preserve  a  record.  They  have  had  no  historian. 
With  here  and  there  an  exception,  they  have  all  passed 
away ;  and  only  some  faint  tradition  of  their  campaigns 
under  Washington,  and  Greene,  and  Lafayette,  and  of 
their  cruisings  under  Decatur  and  Barry,  lingers  among 
their  descendants.  Yet  enough  is  known  to  show  that  the 
free  colored  men  of  the  United  States  bore  their  full 
proportion  of  the  sacrifices  and  trials  of  the  revolutionary 
war. 

The  late  Governor  Eustis,  of  Massachusetts,  —  the  pride 
and  boast  of  the  democracy  of  the  east,  himself  an  active 
participant  in  the  war,  and  therefore  a  most  competent 
witness,  —  Governor  Merrill,  of  Xew  Hampshire,  Judge 
Hemphill,  of  Pennsylvania,  and  other  members  of  Con 
gress,  in  the  debate  on  the  question  of  admitting1  Missouri 
as  a  slave  state  into  the  Union,  bore  emphatic  testimony 
to  the  efficiency  and  heroism  of  the  black  troops.  Hon. 
Calvin  Goddard,  of  Connecticut,  states  that  in  the  little 
circle  of  his  residence  he  was  instrumental  in  securing, 
under  the  act  of  1818,  the  pensions  of  nineteen  colored 
soldiers.  "  I  cannot,"  he  says,  "  refrain  from  mentioning 
one  aged  black  man,  Primus  Babcock,  who  proudly  pre 
sented  to  me  an  honorable  discharge  from  service  during 
the  war,  dated  at  the  close  of  it,  wholly  in  the  hand 
writing  of  George  Washington ;  nor  can  I  forget  the 
expression  of  his  feelings  when  informed,  after  his  dis- 


186  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

charge  had  been  sent  to  the  war  department,  that  it 
could  not  be  returned.  At  his  request  it  was  written  for, 
as  he  seemed  inclined  to  spurn  the  pension  and  reclaim 
the  discharge.''  There  is  a  touching  anecdote  related  of 
Baron  Steuben  on  the  occasion  of  the  disbandment  of  the 
American  army.  A  black  soldier,  with  his  wounds  un- 
healed,  utterly  destitute,  stood  on  the  wharf  just  as  a 
vessel  bound  for  his  distant  home  was  getting  under  weigh. 
The  poor  fellow  gazed  at  the  vessel  with  tears  in  his 
eyes,  and  gave  himself  up  to  despair.  The  warmhearted 
foreigner  witnessed  his  emotion,  and,  inquiring  into  the 
cause  of  it,  took  his  last  dollar  from  his  purse  and  gave  it 
to  him,  with  tears  of  sympathy  trickling  down  his  cheeks. 
Overwhelmed  with  gratitude,  the  poor  wounded  soldier 
hailed  the  sloop  and  was  received  on  board.  As  it  moved 
out  from  the  wharf,  he  cried  back  to  his  noble  friend  on 
shore,  "  God  Almighty  bless  you,  master  Baron  ! " 

"  In  Rhode  Island,"  says  Governor  Eustis  in  his  able 
Speech  against  slavery  in  Missouri,  12th  of  twelfth  month, 
1820,  "  the  blacks  formed  an  entire  regiment,  and  they 
discharged  their  duty  with  zeal  and  fidelity.  The  gallant 
defence  of  Red  Bank,  in  which  the  black  regiment  bore  a 
part,  is  among  the  proofs  of  their  valor."  In  this  contest 
it  will  be  recollected  that  four  hundred  men  met  and 
repulsed,  after  a  terrible  and  sanguinary  struggle,  fifteen 
hundred  Hessian  troops,  headed  by  Count  Donop.  The 


THE  BLACK  MEN  IX  THE  REVOLUTION.     187 

glory  of  the  defence  of  Red  Bank,  which  has  been  pro 
nounced  one  of  the  most  heroic  actions  of  the  war,  belongs 
in  reality  to  black  men ;  yet  who  now  hears  them  spoker 
of  in  connection  with  it  ?  Among  the  traits  which  dis 
tinguished  the  black  regiment  was  devotion  to  their 
officers.  In  the  attack  made  upon  the  American  lines 
near  Croton  River  on  the  13th  of 'the  fifth  month,  1781, 
Colonel  Greene,  the  commander  of  the  regiment,  was  cut 
down  and  mortally  wounded;  but  the  sabres  of  the  enemy 
only  reached  him  through  the  bodies  of  his  faithful  guard 
of  blacks,  who  hovered  over  him  to  protect  him,  every  one 
of  whom  was  killed.  The  late  Dr.  Harris,  of  Dunbarton, 
New  Hampshire,  a  revolutionary  veteran,  stated,  in  a 
speech  at  Francestown,  New  Hampshire,  some  years  ago, 
that  on  one  occasion  the  regiment  to  which  he  was  attached 
was  commanded  to  defend  an  important  position,  which 
the  enemy  thrice  assailed,  and  from  which  they  were  as 
often  repulsed.  "  There  was,"  said  the  venerable  speaker, 
"  a  regiment  of  blacks  in  the  same  situation,  —  a  regiment 
of  negroes  fighting  for  our  liberty  and  independence,  not  a 
white  man  among  them  but  the  officers,  —  in  the  same 
dangerous  and  responsible  position.  Had  they  been  un 
faithful  or  given  way  before  the  enemy,  all  would  have 
been  lost.  Three  times  in  succession  were  they  attacked 
with  most  desperate  fury  by  well-disciplined  and  veteran 
troops ;  and  three  times  did  they  successfully  repel  the 


188  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

assault,  and  thus  preserve  an  army.     They  fought  thus 
through  the  war.     They  were  brave  and  hardy  troops." 

In  the  debate  in  the  New  York  convention  of  1821  for 
amending  the  constitution  of  the  state,  on  the  question  of 
extending  the  right  of  suffrage  to  the  blacks,  Dr.  Clarke, 
the  delegate  from  Delaware  county,  and  other  members, 
made  honorable  mention  of  the  services  of  the  colored 
troops  in  the  revolutionary  army. 

The  late  James  Forten,  of  Philadelphia,  well  known  as 
a  colored  man  of  wealth,  intelligence,  and  philanthropy, 
enlisted  in  the  American  navy  under  Captain  Decatur, 
of  the  Royal  Louis,  was  taken  prisoner  during  his  second 
cruise,  and,  with  nineteen  other  colored  men,  confined  on 
board  the  horrible  Jersey  prison  ship.  All  the  vessels  in 
the  American  service  at  that  period  were  partly  manned 
by  blacks.  The  old  citizens  of  Philadelphia  to  this  day 
remember  the  fact,  that,  when  the  troops  of  the  north 
marched  through  the  city,  one  or  more  colored  companies 
were  attached  to  nearly  all  the  regiments. 

Governor  Eustis,  in  the  speech  before  quoted,  states 
that  the  free  colored  soldiers  entered  the  ranks  with  the 
whites.  The  time  of  those  who  were  slaves  was  pur 
chased  of  their  masters,  and  they  were  induced  to  enter 
the  service  in  consequence  of  a  law  of  Congress  by  which, 
on  condition  of  their  serving  in  the  ranks  during  the  war, 
they  were  made  freemen.  This  hope  of  liberty  inspired 


THE  BLACK  MEN  IX  THE  REVOLUTION.     189 

them  with  courage  to  oppose  their  breasts  to  the  Hessian 
bayonet  at  Red  Bank,  and  enabled  them  to  endure  with 
fortitude  the  cold  and  famine  of  Valley  Forge.  The 
anecdote  of  the  slave  of  General  Sullivan,  of  New  Hamp 
shire,  is  well  known.  When  his  master  told  him  that 
they  were  on  the  point  of  starting  for  the  army,  to  fight 
for  liberty,  he  shrewdly  suggested  that  it  would  be  a  great 
satisfaction  to  know  that  he  was  indeed  going  to  fight  for 
his  liberty.  Struck  with  the  reasonableness  and  justice 
of  this  suggestion,  General  S.  at  once  gave  him  his 
freedom. 

The  late  Tristam.Burges,  of  Rhode  Island,  in  a  speech 
in  Congress,  first  month,  1828,  said,  "  At  the  commence 
ment  of  the  revolutionary  war,  Rhode  Island  had  a  num 
ber  of  slaves.  A  regiment  of  them  were  enlisted  into  the 
continental  service,  and  no  braver  men  met  the  enemy  in 
battle ;  but  not  one  of  them  was  permitted  to  be  a  soldier 
until  he  had  first  been  made  a  freeman." 

The  celebrated  Charles  Pinckney,  of  South  Carolina, 
in  his  speech  on  the  Missouri  question  and  in  defence  of 
the  slave  representation  of  the  south,  made  the  following 
admissions  :  — 

"They  (the  colored  people)  were  in  numerous  in 
stances  the  pioneers,  and  in  all  the  laborers,  of  our  armies. 
To  their  hands  were  owing  the  greatest  part  of  the  forti 
fications  raised  for  the  protection  of  the  country.  Fort 


190  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

Moultrie  gave,  at  an  early  period  of  the  inexperienced  and 
untried  valor  of  our  citizens,  immortality  to  the  American 
arms  ;  and  in  the  Northern  States  numerous  bodies  of 
them  were  enrolled,  and  .fought  side  by  side  with  the 
whites  at  the  battles  of  the  revolution." 

Let  us  now  look  forward  thirty  or  forty  years,  to  the 
last  war  with  Great  Britain,  and  see  whether  the  whites 
enjoyed  a  monopoly  of  patriotism  at  that  time. 

Martindale,  of  New  York,  in  Congress,  22d  of  first 
month,  1828,  said,  "  Slaves,  or  negroes  who  had  been 
slaves,  were  enlisted  as  soldiers  in  the  war  of  the  revolu 
tion  ;  and  I  myself  saw  a  battalion  of  them,  as  fine  martial- 
looking  men  as  I  ever  saw,  attached  to  the  northern 
army  in  the  last  war,  on  its  march  from  Plattsburg  to 
Sackett's  Harbor." 

Hon.  Charles  Miner,  of  Pennsylvania,  in  Congress, 
second  month  7th,  1828,  said,  "  The  African  race  make 
excellent  soldiers.  Large  numbers  of  them  were  with 
Perry,  and  helped  to  gain  the  brilliant  victory  of  Lake 
Erie.  A  whole  battalion  of  them  were  distinguished  for 
their  orderly  appearance." 

Dr.  Clarke,  in  the  convention  which  revised  the  con 
stitution  of  New  York  in  1821,  speaking  of  the  colored 
inhabitants  of  the  state,  said, — 

"  In  your  late  war  they  contributed  largely  towards 
some  of  your  most  splendid  victories.  On  Lakes  Erie 


THE    BLACK    MEN    IX    THE    REVOLUTION.  191 

and  Champlain,  where  your  fleets  triumphed  over  a  foe 
superior  in  numbers  and  engines  of  death,  they  were 
manned  in  a  large  proportion  with  men  of  color.  And  in 
this  very  house,  in  the  fall  of  1814,  a  bill  passed,  receiv 
ing  the  approbation  of  all  the  branches  of  your  govern 
ment,  authorizing  the  governor  to  accept  the  services  of  a 
corps  of  two  thousand  free  people  of  color.  Sir,  these 
were  times  which  tried  men's  souls.  In  these  times  it 
was  no  sporting  matter  to  bear  arms.  These  were  times 
when  a  man  who  shouldered  his  musket  did  not  know  but 
he  bared  his  bosom  to  receive  a  death  wound  from  the 
enemy  ere  he  laid  it  aside  ;  and  in  these  times  these 
people  were  found  as  ready  and  as  willing  to  volunteer 
in  your  service  as  any  other.  They  were  not  compelled 
to  go ;  they  were  not  drafted.  No ;  your  pride  had 
placed  them  beyond  your  compulsory  power.  But  there 
was  no  necessity  for  its  exercise ;  they  were  volunteers ; 
yes,  sir,  volunteers  to  defend  that  very  country  from  the 
inroads  and  ravages  of  a  ruthless  and  vindictive  foe 
which  had  treated  them  with  insult,  degradation,  and 
slavery." 

On  the  capture  of  Washington  by  the  British  forces,  it 
was  judged  expedient  to  fortify,  without  delay,  the  prin 
cipal  towns  and  cities  exposed  to  similar  attacks.  The 
vigilance  committee  of  Philadelphia  waited  upon  three  of 
the  principal  colored  citizens,  viz.,  James  Forten,  Bishop 


192  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

Allen,  and  Absalom  Jones,  soliciting  the  aid  of  the  people 
of  color  in  erecting  suitable  defences  for  the  city.  Ac 
cordingly,  twenty-five  hundred  colored  men  assembled 
in  the  state-house  yard,  and  from  thence  marched  to 
Gray's  Ferry,  where  they  labored  for  two  days  almost 
without  intermission.  Their  labors  were  so  faithful  and 
efficient  that  a  vote  of  thanks  was  tendered  them  by  the 
committee.  A  battalion  of  colored  troops  was  at  the 
same  time  organized  in  the  city  under  an  officer  of  the 
United  States  army;  and  they  were  on  the  point  of 
marching  to  the  frontier  when  peace  was  proclaimed. 

General  Jackson's  proclamations  to  the  free  colored 
inhabitants  of  Louisiana  are  well  known.  In  his  first, 
inviting  them  to  take  up  arms,  he  said,  — 

"  As  sons  of  freedom,  you  are  now  called  on  to  defend 
our  most  inestimable  blessings.  As  Americans,  your 
country  looks  with  confidence  to  her  adopted  children  for 
a  valorous  support.  As  fathers,  husbands,  and  brothers, 
you  are  summoned  to  rally  round  the  standard  of  the 
eagle,  to  defend  all  which  is  dear  in  existence." 

The  second  proclamation  is  one  of  the  highest  compli 
ments  ever  paid  by  a  military  chief  to  his  soldiers :  — 

"TO  THE  FREE  PEOPLE  OF  COLOR. 

"  Soldiers !  when  on  the  banks  of  the  Mobile  I 
called  you  to  take  up  arms,  inviting  you  to  partake  the 


THE    BLACK    MEN    IN    THE    REVOLUTION.  193 

perils  and  glory  of  your  white  fellow -citizens,  I  expected 
much  from  you ;  for  I  was  not  ignorant  that  you  possessed 
qualities  most  formidable  to  an  invading  enemy.  I  knew 
with  what  fortitude  you  could  endure  hunger,  and  thirst, 
and  all  the  fatigues  of  a  campaign.  I  knew  well  how  you 
loved  your  native  country,  and  that  you,  as  well  as  our 
selves,  had  to  defend  what  man  holds  most  dear  —  his 
parents,  wife,  children,  and  property.  You  have  done 
more  than  I  expected.  In  addition  to  the  previous  quali 
ties  I  before  knew  you  to  possess,  I  found  among  you  a 
noble  enthusiasm,  which  leads  to  the  performance  of 
great  things. 

"Soldiers!  the  President  of  the  United  States  shall 
hear  how  praiseworthy  was  your  conduct  in  the  hour  of 
danger,  and  the  representatives  of  the  American  people 
will  give  you  the  praise  your  exploits  entitle  you  to.  Your 
general  anticipates  them  in  applauding  your  noble  ardor." 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  whatever  honor  belongs  to  the 
"  heroes  of  the  -revolution  "  and  the  volunteers  in  "  the 
second  war  for  independence  "  is  to  be  divided  between 
the  white  and  the  colored  man.  We  have  dwelt  upon 
this  subject  at  length,  not  because  it  accords  with  our 
principles  or  feelings,  for  it  is  scarcely  necessary  for  us  to 
say  that  we  are  one  of  those  who  hold  that 

"Peace  hath  her  victories 
No  less  renowned  than  war," 

13 


194  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

and  certainly  far  more  desirable  and  useful ;  but  because, 
in  popular  estimation,  the  patriotism  which  dares  and  does 
on  the  battle  field  takes  a  higher  place  than  the  quiet 
exercise  of  the  duties  of  peaceful  citizenship ;  and  we  are 
willing  that  colored  soldiers,  with  their  descendants,  should 
have  the  benefit,  if  possible,  of  a  public  sentiment  which 
has  so  extravagantly  lauded  their  white  companions  in 
arms.  If  pulpits  must  be  desecrated  by  eulogies  of  the 
patriotism  of  bloodshed,  we  see  no  reason  why  black  de 
fenders  of  their  country  in  the  war  for  liberty  should  not 
receive  honorable  mention  as  well  as  white  invaders  of  a 
neighboring  republic  who  have  volunteered  in  a  war  for 
plunder  and  slavery  extension.  For  the  latter  class  of 
"  heroes  "  we  have  very  little  respect.  The  patriotism 
of  too  many  of  them  forcibly  reminds  us  of  Dr.  Johnson's 
definition  of  that  much-abused  term :  "  Patriotism,  sir ! 
'Tis  the  last  refuge  of  a  scoundrel." 

"  What  right,  I  demand,"  said  an  American  orator  some 
years  ago,  "  have  the  children  of  Africa  to  a  homestead  in 
the  white  man's  country  ?  "  The  answer  will  in  part  be 
found  in  the  facts  which  we  have  presented.  Their  right, 
like  that  of  their  white  fellow-citizens,  dates  back  to  the 
dread  arbitrament  of  battle.  Their  bones  whiten  every 
stricken  field  of  the  revolution  ;  their  feet  tracked  with 
blood  the  snows  of  Jersey  ;  their  toil  built  up  every  forti 
fication  south  of  the  Potomac  ;  they  shared  the  famine  and 


THE  BLACK.  MEN  IX  THE  REVOLUTION.     195 

nakedness  of  Valley  Forge  and  the  pestilential  horrors  of 
the  old  Jersey  prison  ship.  Have  they,  then,  no  claim  to  an 
equal  participation  in  the  blessings  which  have  grown  out 
of  the  national  independence  for  which  they  fought?  Is 
it  just,  is  it  magnanimous,  is  it  safe  even,  to  starve  the 
patriotism  of  such  a  people,  to  cast  their  hearts  out  of 
the  treasury  of  the  republic,  and  to  convert  them,  by 
political  disfranchisement  and  social  oppression,  into 
enemies  ? 


MY   SUMMER   WITH   DR.   SINGLETARY. 

A    FRAGMENT. 
CHAPTER  I. 

DR.  SINGLETART  is  dead ! 

Well,  what  of  it  ?  All  who  live  die  sooner  or  later ; 
and  pray  who  was  Dr.  Singletary,  that  his  case  should 
claim  particular  attention  ? 

Why,  in  the  first  place,  Dr.  Singletary,  as  a  man,  born 
to  our  common  inheritance  of  joy  and  sorrow,  earthly  in 
stincts  and  heavenward  aspirations,  —  our  brother  in  sin 
and  suffering,  wisdom  and  folly,  love,  and  pride,  and  van 
ity,  —  has  a  claim  upon  the  universal  sympathy.  Besides, 
whatever  the  living  man  may  have  been,  death  has  now 
invested  him  with  its  great  solemnity.  He  is  with  the 
immortals.  For  him  the  dark  curtain  has  been  lifted. 
The  weaknesses,  the  follies,  and  the  repulsive  mental  and 
personal  idiosyncrasies  which  may  have  kept  him  without 
the  sphere  of  our  respect  and  sympathy  have  now  fallen 

(196) 


MY    SUMMER    WITH    DR.    SINGLETARY.  197 

off,  and  he  stands  radiant  with  the  transfiguration  of  eter 
nity,  God's  child,  our  recognized  and  acknowledged  brother. 

Dr.  Singletary  is  dead.  He  was  an  old  man,  and  sel 
dom,  of  latter  years,  ventured  beyond  the  precincts  of  his 
neighborhood.  He  was  a  single  man,  and  his  departure 
has  broken  no  circle  of  family  affection.  He  was  little 
known  to  the  public,  and  is  now  little  missed.  The  vil 
lage  newspaper  simply  appended  to  its  announcement 
of  his  decease  the  customary  post  mortem  compliment, 
"  Greatly  respected  by  all  who  knew  him ; "  and  in  the 
annual  catalogue  of  his  alma  mater  an  asterisk  has  been 
added  to  his  name,  over  which  perchance  some  gray- 
haired  survivor  of  his  class  may  breathe  a  sigh  as  he  calls 
up  the  image  of  the  freshfaced,  brighteyed  boy,  who,  as 
piring,  hopeful,  vigorous,  started  with  him  on  the  journey 
of  life  —  a  sigh  rather  for  himself  than  for  its  unconscious 
awakener. 

But  a  few  years  have  passed  since  he  left  us ;  yet  al 
ready  well  nigh  all  the  outward  manifestations,  landmarks, 
and  memorials  of  the  living  man  have  passed  away  or 
been  removed.  His  house,  with  its  broad,  mossy  roof 
sloping  down  on  one  side  almost  to  the  rose  bushes  and 
lilacs,  and  with  its  comfortable  little  porch  in  front,  where 
he  used  to  sit  of  a  pleasant  summer  afternoon,  has  passed 
into  new  hands  and  has  been  sadly  disfigured  by  a  glaring 
coat  of  white  paint ;  and  in  the  place  of  the  good  doctor's 


198  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

name,  hardly  legible  on  the  Corner  board,  may  now  be 
seen,  in  staring  letters  of  black  and  gold,  "  VALENTINE 
ORSON  STUBBS,  M.  D.,  Indian  doctor  and  dealer  in 
roots  and  herbs."  The  good  doctor's  old  horse,  as  well 
known  as  its  owner  to  every  man,  woman,  and  child  in 
the  village,  has  fallen  into  the  new  comer's  hands,  who 
(being  prepared  to  make  the  most  of  him,  from  the  fact 
that  he  commenced  the  practice  of  the  healing  art  in  the 
stable,  rising  from  thence  to  the  parlor)  has  rubbed  him 
into  comparative  sleekness,  cleaned  his  mane  and  tail  of 
the  accumulated  burrs  of  many  autumns,  and  made  quite  a 
gay  nag  of  him.  The  wagon,  too,  in  which  at  least  two 
generations  of  boys  and  girls  have  ridden  in  noisy  hilarity 
whenever  they  encountered  it  on  their  way  to  school,  has 
been  so  smartly  painted  and  varnished,  that,  if  its  former 
owner  could  look  down  from  the  hill  slope  where  he  lies, 
he  would  scarcely  know  his  once  familiar  vehicle  as  it 
whirls  glittering  along  the  main  road  to  the  village.  For 
the  rest,  all  things  go  on  as  usual ;  the  miller  grinds,  the 
blacksmith  strikes  and  blows,  the  cobbler  and  tailor  stitch 
and  mend,  old  men  sit  in  the  autumn  sun,  old  gossips  stir 
tea  and  scandal,  revival  meetings  alternate  with  apple  bees 
and  huskings, —  toil,  pleasure,  family  jars,  petty  neighbor 
hood  quarrels,  courtship,  and  marriage,  —  all  which  make 
up  the  daily  life  of  a  country  village,  continue  as  before. 
The  little  chasm  which  his  death  has  made  in  the  hearts 


MY    SUMMER    WITH    DR.    SINGLETARY.  199 

of  the  people  where  he  lived  and  labored  seems  nearly 
closed  up.  There  is  only  one  more  grave  in  the  burying 
ground  —  that  is  all. 

Let  nobody  infer  from  what  I  have  said  that  the  good 
man  died  unlamented ;  for,  indeed,  it  was  a  sad  day  with 
his  neighbors  when  the  news,  long  expected,  ran  at  last 
from  house  to  house  and  from  workshop  to  workshop, 
"  Dr.  Singletary  is  dead !  "  He  had  not  any  enemy  left 
among  them;  in  one  way  or  another  he  had  been  the 
friend  and  benefactor  of  all.  Some  owed  to  his  skill 
their  recovery  from  sickness ;  others  remembered  how  he 
had  watched  with  anxious  solicitude  by  the  bedside  of 
their  dying  relatives,  soothing  them,  when  all  human  aid 
was  vain,  with  the  sweet  consolations  of  that  Christian 
hope  which  alone  pierces  the  great  shadow  of  the  grave 
and  shows  the  safe  stepping  stones  above  the  dark  waters. 
The  old  missed  a  cheerful  companion  and  friend,  who 
had  taught  them  much  without  wounding  their  pride  by 
an  offensive  display  of  his  superiority,  and  who,  while 
making  a  jest  of  his  own  trials  and  infirmities,  could  still 
listen  with  real  sympathy  to  the  querulous  and  impor 
tunate  complaints  of  others.  For  one  day  at  least,  even 
the  sunny  faces  of  childhood  were  marked  with  unwonted 
thoughtfulness ;  the  shadow  of  the  common  bereavement 
fell  over  the  play  ground  and  nursery.  The  little  girl  re 
membered,  with  tears,  how  her  broken-limbed  doll  had 


200  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

taxed  the  surgical  ingenuity  of  her  genial  old  friend ;  and 
the  boy  showed  sorrowfully  to  his  playmates  the  top 
which  the  good  doctor  had  given  him.  If  there  were  few, 
among  the  many  who  stood  beside  his  grave,  capable  of 
rightly  measuring  and  appreciating  the  high  intellectual 
and  spiritual  nature  which  formed  the  background  of  his 
simple  social  life,  all  could  feel  that  no  common  loss  had 
been  sustained,  and  that  the  kindly  and  generous  spirit 
which  had  passed  away  from  them  had  not  lived  to  him 
self  alone. 

As  you  follow  the  windings  of  one  of  the  loveliest  rivers 
of  New  England,  a  few  miles  above  the  sea  mart,  at  its 
mouth,  you  can  see  on  a  hill,  whose  grassy  slope  is  check 
ered  with  the  graceful  foliage  of  the  locust,  and  whose  top 
stands  relieved  against  a  still  higher  elevation,  dark  with 
oaks  and  walnuts,  the  white  stones  of  the  burying-place. 
It  is  a  quiet  spot,  but  without  gloom,  as  befits  "  God's 
Acre."  Below  is  the  village,  with  its  sloops  and  fishing 
boats  at  the  wharves,  and  its  crescent  of  white  houses  mir 
rored  in  the  water.  Eastward  is  the  misty  line  of  the 
great  sea.  Blue  peaks  of  distant  mountains  roughen  the 
horizon  of  the  north.  Westward  the  broad,  clear  river 
winds  away  into  a  maze  of  jutting  bluffs  and  picturesque 
wooded  headlands.  The  tall,  white  stone  on  the  west 
erly  slope  of  the  hill  bears  the  name  of  "  Nicholas  Sin- 
gletary,  M.  D.,"  and  marks  the  spot  which  he  selected 


MY    SUMMER    TVITH    DR.    SINGLETART.  201 

many  years  before  his  death.  When  I  visited  it  last 
spring  the  air  about  it  was  fragrant  with  the  bloom  of 
sweet  brier  and  blackberry  and  the  balsamic  aroma  of  the 
sweet  fern ;  birds  were  singing  in  the  birch  trees  by  the 
wall ;  and  two  little,  brown-locked,  merry-faced  girls  were 
making  wreaths  of  the  dandelions  and  grasses  which  grew 
upon  the  old  man's  grave.  The  sun  was  setting  behind 
the  western  river  bluffs,  flooding  the  valley  with  soft  light, 
glorifying  every  object  and  fusing  all  into  harmony  and 
beauty.  I  saw  and  felt  nothing  to  depress  or  sadden  me. 
I  could  have  joined  in  the  laugh  of  the  children.  The 
light  whistle  of  a  young  teamster,  driving  merrily  home 
ward,  did  not  jar  upon  my  ear ;  for  from  the  transfigured 
landscape,  and  from  the  singing  birds,  and  from  sportive 
childhood,  and  from  blossoming  sweet  brier,  and  from  the 
grassy  mound  before  me  I  heard  the  whisper  of  one  word 
only,  and  that  word  was  PEACE. 


CHAPTER  H. 

SOME  ACCOUNT  OF  PEEWATVKIN,  ON  THE  TOCKETUCK. 

"Well  and   truly  said   the  wise   man    of    old,   "  Much 
study  is    a  weariness    to    the   flesh."     Hard   and    close 


202  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

application  through  the  winter  had  left  me  ill  prepared  to 
resist  the  baleful  influences  of  a  New  England  spring.  I 
shrank  alike  from  the  storms  of  March,  the  capricious 
changes  of  April,  and  the  sudden  alternations  of  May, 
from  the  blandest  of  south-west  breezes  to  the  terrible  and 
icy  eastern  blasts  which  sweep  our  seaboard  like  the  fa 
bled  sanser,  or  wind  of  death.  The  buoyancy  and  vigor, 
the  freshness  and  beauty,  of  life  seemed  leaving  me.  The 
flesh  and  the  spirit  were  no  longer  harmonious.  I  was 
tormented  by  a  nightmare  feeling  of  the  necessity  of  ex 
ertion,  coupled  with  a  sense  of  utter  inability.  A  thou 
sand  plans  for  my  own  benefit,  or  the  welfare  of  those 
dear  to  me,  or  of  my  fellow-men  at  large,  passed  before  me ; 
but  I  had  no  strength  to  lay  hold  of  the  good  angels  and 
detain  them  until  they  left  their  blessing.  The  trumpet 
sounded  in  my  ears  for  the  tournament  of  life  ;  but  I  could 
not  bear  the  weight  of  my  armor.  In  the  midst  of  duties 
and  responsibilities  which  I  clearly  comprehended  I  found 
myself  yielding  to  the  absorbing  egotism  of  sickness.  I 
could  work  only  when  the  sharp  rowels  of  necessity  were 
in  my  sides. 

It  needed  not  the  ominous  warnings  of  my  acquaint 
ance  to  convince  me  that  some  decisive  change  was 
necessary.  But  what  was  to  be  done  ?  A  voyage  to 
Europe  was  suggested  by  my  friends  ;  but  unhappily  I 
reckoned  among  them  no  one  who  was  ready,  like  'the 


MY    SUMMER    WITH    DR.    SIXGLETARY.  203 

honest  laird  of  Dumbedikes,  to  inquire,  purse  in  hand, 
"  Will  siller  do  it  ?  "  In  casting  about  for  some  other  ex 
pedient,  I  remembered  the  pleasant  old-fashioned  village 
of  Peewawkin,  on  the  Tocketuck  River.  A  few  weeks 
of  leisure,  country  air,  and  exercise,  I  thought,  might  be 
of  essential  service  to  me.  So  I  turned  my  key  upon  my 
cares  and  studies,  and  my  back  to  the  city,  and  one  fine 
evening  of  early  June  the  mail  coach  rumbled  over  Tocke 
tuck  Bridge  and  left  me  at  the  house  of  Dr.  Singletary, 
where  I  had  been  fortunate  enough  to  secure  bed  and 
board. 

The  little  village  of  Peewawkin  at  this  period  was  a 
well-preserved  specimen  of  the  old,  quiet,  cozy  hamlets 
of  New  England.  No  huge  factory  threw  its  evil  shadow 
over  it;  no  smoking  demon  of  an  engine  dragged  its  long 
train  through  the  streets ;  no  steamboat  puffed  at  its 
wharves,  or  ploughed  up  the  river,  like  the  enchanted 
ship  of  the  Ancient  Mariner,  — 

"  Against  the  wind,  against  the  tide, 
Steadied  with  upright  keel." 

The  march  of  mind  had  not  overtaken  it.  It  had  neither 
printing  press  nor  lyceum.  As  the  fathers  had  done 
before  them,  so  did  its  inhabitants  at  the  time  of  my  visit. 
There  was  little  or  no  competition  in  their  business  ;  there 
were*no  rich  men,  and  none  that  seemed  over-anxious  to 


204  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

become  so.  Two  or  three  small  vessels  were  annually 
launched  from  the  carpenters'  yards  on  the  river.  There 
was  a  blacksmith's  shop,  with  its  clang  of  iron  and  roar 
of  bellows ;  a  pottery,  garnished  with  its  coarse  earthen 
ware ;  a  store,  where  molasses,  sugar,  and  spices  were 
sold  on  one  side,  and  calicoes,  tape,  and  ribbons  on  the 
other.  Three  or  four  small  schooners  annually  left  the 
wharves  for  the  St.  George's  and  Labrador  fisheries. 
Just  back  of  the  village  a  bright,  noisy  stream,  gushing 
out,  like  a  merry  laugh,  from  the  walnut  and  oak  woods 
which  stretched  back  far  to  the  north  through  a  narrow 
break  in  the  hills,  turned  the  great  wheel  of  a  gristmill, 
and  went  frolicking  away,  like  a  wicked  Undine,  under 
the  very  windows  of  the  brown,  lilac-shaded  house  of 
Deacon  Warner,  the  miller,  as  if  to  tempt  the  good  man's 
handsome  daughters  to  take  lessons  in  dancing.  At  one 
end  of  the  little  crescent-shaped  village,  at  the  corner  of 
the  main  road  and  the  green  lane  to  Deacon  Warner's 
mill,  stood  the  school  house, —  a  small,  ill-used,  Spanish- 
brown  building,  —  its  patched  windows  bearing  unmis 
takable  evidence  of  the  mischievous  character  of  its  in 
mates.  At  the  other  end,  farther  up  the  river,  on  a  rocky 
knoll  open  to  all  the  winds,  stood  the  meeting  house,  — 
old,  two  story,  and  full  of  windows,  —  its  gilded  weather 
cock  glistening  in  the  sun.  The  bell  in  its  belfry  had 
been  brought  from  France  by  Skipper  Evans  in  the -latter 


MY    SUMMER    WITH    DR.    §INGLETART.  205 

part  of  the  last  century.  Solemnly  baptized  and  conse 
crated  to  some  holy  saint,  it  had  called  to  prayer  the 
veiled  sisters  of  a  convent  and  tolled  heavily  in  the  mass 
es  for  the  dead.  At  first  some  of  the  church  felt  misgiv 
ings  as  to  the  propriety  of  hanging  a  Popish  bell  in  a 
Puritan  steeple  house ;  but  their  objections  were  overruled 
by  the  minister,  who  wisely  maintained,  that,  if  Moses 
could  use  the  borrowed  jewels  and  ornaments  of  the 
Egyptians  to  adorn  and  beautify  the  ark  of  the  Lord,  it 
could  not  be  amiss  to  make  a  Catholic  bell  do  service  in 
an  Orthodox  belfry.  The  space  between  the  school  and 
the  meeting  house  was  occupied  by  some  fifteen  or  twenty 
dwellings,  many  colored  and  diverse  in  age  and  appear 
ance.  Each  one  had  its  green  yard  in  front,  its  rose 
bushes  and  lilacs.  Great  elms,  planted  a  century  ago, 
stretched  and  interlocked  their  heavy  arms  across  the 
street.  The  mill  stream,  which  found  its  way  into  the 
Tocketuck  near  the  centre  of  the  village,  was  spanned  by 
a  rickety  wooden  bridge,  rendered  picturesque  by  a  ven 
erable  and  gnarled  white  oak  which  hung  over  it,  with  its 
great  roots  half  bared  by  the  water  and  twisted  among 
the  mossy  stones  of  the  crumbling  abutment. 

The  house  of  Dr.  Singletary  was  situated  somewhat 
apart  from  the  main  street,  just  on  the  slope  of  Blueberry 
Hill  —  a  great,  green  swell  of  land,  stretching  far  down 
from  the  north,  and  terminating  in  a  steep  bluff  at  the 


206  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

river  side.  It  overlooked  the  village  and  the  river  a  long 
way  up  and  down.  It  was  a  brown -looking,  antiquated 
mansion,  built  by  the  doctor's  grandfather  in  the  earlier 
days  of  the  settlement.  The  rooms  were  large  and  low, 
with  great  beams,  scaly  with  whitewash,  running  across 
them,  scarcely  above  the  reach  of  a  tall  man's  head. 
Great-throated  fireplaces,  filled  with  pine  boughs  and  flower 
pots,  gave  promise  of  winter  fires,  roaring  and  crackling 
in  boisterous  hilarity,  as  if  laughing  to  scorn  the  folly  and 
discomfort  of  our  modern  stoves.  In  the  porch  at  the 
front  door  were  two  seats,  where  the  doctor  was  accus 
tomed  to  sit  in  fine  weather  with  his  pipe  and  his  book, 
or  with  such  friends  as  might  call  to  spend  a  half  hour 
with  him.  The  lawn  in  front  had  scarcely  any  other  or 
nament  than  its  green  grass,  cropped  short  by  the  doctor's 
horse.  A  stone  wall  separated  it  from  the  lane,  half  over 
run  with  wild  hop,  or  clematis,  and  two  noble  rock  maples 
arched  over  with  their  dense  foliage  the  little  red  gate. 
Dark  belts  of  woodland,  smooth  hill  pasture,  green,  broad 
meadows,  and  fields  of  corn  and  rye,  the  homesteads  of 
the  villagers,  were  seen  on  one  hand;  while  on  the 
other  was  the  bright,  clear  river,  with  here  and  there  a 
white  sail,  relieved  against  bold,  wooded  banks,  jutting 
rocks,  or  tiny  islands,  dark  with  dwarf  evergreens.  It 
was  a  quiet,  rural  picture,  a  happy  and  peaceful  contrast 
to  all  I  had  looked  upon  for  weary,  miserable  months.  It 


MY    SUMMER    WITH    DR.    SIXGLETARY.  207 

soothed  the  nervous  excitement  of  pain  and  suffering.  I 
forgot  myself  in  the  pleasing  interest  which  it  awakened. 
Nature's  healing  ministrations  came  to  me  through  all  my 
senses.  I  felt  the  medicinal  virtues  of  her  sights,  and 
sounds,  and  aromal  breezes.  From  the  green  turf  of  her 
hills  and  the  mossy  carpets  of  her  woodlands  my  lan 
guid  steps  derived  new  vigor  and  elasticity.  I  felt,  day 
by  day,  the  transfusion  of  her  strong  life. 

The  doctor's  domestic  establishment  consisted  of  widow 
Matson,  his  housekeeper,  and  an  idle  slip  of  a  boy^  who, 
when  he  was-  not  paddling  across  the  river,  or  hunting  in 
the  swamps,  or  playing  ball  on  the  "  Meetin'  'us  Hill," 
used  to  run  of  errands,  milk  the  cow,  and  saddle  the 
horse.  Widow  Matson  was  a  notable  shrill-ton gued 
woman,  from  whom  two  long-suffering  husbands  had  ob 
tained  what  might,  under  the  circumstances,  be  well 
called  a  comfortable  release.  She  was  neat  and  tidy 
almost  to  a  fault,  thrifty  and  industrious,  and,  barring  her 
scolding  propensity,  was  a  pattern  housekeeper.  For  the 
doctor  she  entertained  so  high  a  regard  that  nothing  could 
exceed  her  indignation  when  any  one  save  herself  pre 
sumed  to  find  fault  with  him.  Her  bark  was  worse  than 
her  bite ;  she  had  a  warm,  woman's  heart,  capable  of  soft 
relentings  ;  and  this  the  roguish  errand  boy  so  well  under 
stood  that  he  bore  the  daily  infliction  of  her  tongue  with 
a  good-natured  unconcern  which  would  have  been  greatly 


208  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

to  his  credit  had  it  not  resulted  from  his  confident  expec 
tation  that  an  extra  slice  of  cake  or  segment  of  pie  would 
ere  long  tickle  his  palate  in  atonement  for  the  tingling 
of  his  ears. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  the  doctor  had  certain  little 
peculiarities  and  ways  of  his  own  which  might  have 
ruffled  the  down  of  a  smoother  temper  than  that  of  the 
widow  Matson.  He  was  careless  and  absent  minded. 
In  spite  of  her  labors  and  complaints,  he  scattered  his 
superfluous  clothing,  books,  and  papers  over  his  rooms 
in  "  much-admired  disorder."  He  gave  the  freedom  of 
his  house  to  the  boys  and  girls  of  his  neighborhood,  who, 
presuming  upon  his  good  nature,  laughed  at  her  remon 
strances  and  threats  as  they  chased  each  other  up  and 
down  the  nicely-polished  stairway.  Worse  than  all,  he 
was  proof  against  the  vituperations  and  reproaches  with 
which  she  indirectly  assailed  him  from  the  recesses  of  her 
kitchen.  He  smoked  his  pipe  and  dozed  over  his  news 
paper  as  complacently  as  ever 'while  his  sins  of  omission 
and  commission  were  arrayed  against  him. 

Peewawkin  had  always  the  reputation  of  a  healthy 
town ;  and  if  it  had  been  otherwise,  Doctor  Singletary 
was  the  last  man  in  the  world  to  transmute  the  aches  and 
ails  of  its  inhabitants  into  gold  for  his  own  pocket.  So, 
at  the  age  of  sixty,  he  was  little  better  off,  in  point  of 
worldly  substance,  than  when  he  came  into  possession  of 


MY    SUMMER    WITH    DR.    SINGLETARY.  209 

the  small  homestead  of  his  father.  He  cultivated  with 
his  own  hands  his  cornfield  and  potato  patch,  and  trimmed 
his  apple  and  pear  trees,  as  well  satisfied  with  his 
patrimony  as  Horace  was  with  his  rustic  Sabine  villa. 
In  addition  to  the  care  of  his  homestead  and  his  profes 
sional  duties,  he  had  long  been  one  of  the  overseers  of  the 
poor  and  a  member  of  the  school  committee  in  his  town  ; 
and  he  was  a  sort  of -standing  reference  in  all  disputes 
about  wages,  boundaries,  and  cattle  trespasses  in  his 
neighborhood.  He  had,  nevertheless,  a  good  deal  of 
leisure  for  reading,  errands  of  charity,  and  social  visits. 
He  loved  to  talk  wi,th  his  friends,  Elder  Staples,  the  min 
ister,'  Deacon  Warner,  and  Skipper  Evans.  He  was  an 
expert  angler,  and  knew  all  the  haunts  of  pickerel  and 
trout  for  many  miles  around.  His  favorite  place  of  resort 
was  the  hill  back  of  his  house,  which  afforded  a  view  of 
the  long  valley  of  the  Tocketuck  and  the  great  sea.  Here 
he  would  sit,  enjoying  the  calm  beauty  of  the  landscape, 
pointing  out  to  me  localities  interesting  from  their  his 
torical  or  traditional  associations,  or  connected  in  some 
way  with  humorous  or  pathetic  passages  of  his  own  life 
experience.  Some  of  these  autobiographical  fragments 
affected  me  deeply.  In  narrating  them  he  invested  famil 
iar  and  commonplace  facts  with  something  of  the  fascina 
tion  of  romance.  "Human  life,"  he  would  say,  "is  the 
same  every  where.  If  we  could  but  get  at  the  truth,  we 
14 


210  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

should  find  that  all  the  tragedy  and  comedy  of  Shak- 
speare  have  been  reproduced  in  this  little  village.  God 
has  made  all  of  one  blood ;  what  is  true  of  one  man  is  in 
some  sort  true  of  another  ;  manifestations  may  differ,  but 
the  essential  elements  and  spring  of  action  are  the  same. 
On  the  surface,  every  thing  about  us  just  now  looks  pro 
saic  and  mechanical ;  you  see  only  a  sort  of  barkmill 
grinding  over  of  the  same  dull,  monotonous  grist  of  daily 
trifles.  But  underneath  all  this  there  is  an  earnest  life, 
rich  and  beautiful  with  love  and  hope,  or  dark  with  hatred, 
and  sorrow,  and  remorse.  That  fisherman  by  the  river 
side,  or  that  woman  at  the  stream  below,  with  her  wash 
tub,  —  who  knows  what  lights  and  shadows  checker  their 
memories,  or  what  present  thoughts  of  theirs,  born  of 
heaven  or  hell,  the  future  shall  ripen  into  deeds  of  good 
or  evil  ?  Ah,  what  have  I  not  seen  and  heard  ?  My 
profession  has  been  to  me,  in  some  sort,  like  the  vial 
genie  of  the  Salamanca  student;  it  has  unroofed  these 
houses,  and  opened  deep,  dark  chambers  to  the  hearts  of 
their  tenants,  which  no  eye  save  that  of  God  had  ever 
looked  upon.  "Where  I  least  expected  them,  I  have 
encountered  shapes  of  evil ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  I 
have  found  beautiful,  heroic  love  and  self-denial  in  those 
who  had  seemed  to  me  frivolous  and  selfish." 

So  would  Dr.  Singletary  discourse  as  we  strolled  over 
Blueberry  Hill  or  drove  along  the  narrow  willow-shaded 


MY    SUMMER    WITH    DR.    SIXGLETARY.  211 

road  which  follows  the  windings  of  the  river.  He  had 
read  and  thought  much  in  his  retired,  solitary  life,  and 
was  evidently  well  satisfied  to  find  in  me  a  gratified  lis 
tener.  He  talked  well  and  fluently,  with  little  regard  to 
logical  sequence,  and  with  something  of  the  dogmatism 
natural  to  one  whose  opinions  had  seldom  been  subjected 
to  scrutiny.  He  seemed  equally  at  home  in  the  most 
abstruse  questions  of  theology  and  metaphysics,  and  in 
the  more  practical  matters  of  mackerel  fishing,  corn  grow 
ing,  and  cattle  raising.  It  was  manifest  that  to  his  book 
lore  he  had  added  that  patient  and  close  observation  of 
the  processes  of  Nature  which  often  places  the  unlettered 
ploughman  and  mechanic  on  a  higher  level  of  available 
intelligence  than  that  occupied  by  professors  and  school 
men.  To  him  nothing  which  had  its  root  in  the  eternal 
verities  of  Nature  was  "  common  or  unclean."  The  black 
smith,  subjecting  to  his  will  the  swart  genii  of  the  mines 
of  coal  and  iron;  the  potter,  with  his  "power  over  the 
clay ; "  the  skipper,  who  had  tossed  in  his  frail  fishing 
smack  among  the  icebergs  of  Labrador;  the  farmer,  who 
had  won  from  Nature  the  occult  secrets  of  her  woods  and 
fields ;  and  even  the  vagabond  hunter  and  angler,  famil 
iar  with  the  habits  of  animals  anjl  the  migration  of  birds 
and  fishes,  —  had  been  his  instructors ;  and  he  was  not 
ashamed  to  acknowledge  that  they  had  taught  him  more 
than  college  or  library. 


212  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

CHAPTER    III. 
THE  DOCTOR'S  MATCHMAKING. 

"  Good  morning,  Mrs.  Barnet,"  cried  the  doctor,  as 
we  drew  near  a  neat  farm  house  during  one  of  our 
morning  drives. 

A  tall,  healthful  young  woman,  in  the  bloom  of  ma 
tronly  beauty,  was  feeding  chickens  at  the  door.  She 
uttered  an  exclamation  of  delight  and  hurried  towards 
us.  Perceiving  a  stranger  in  the  wagon  she  paused, 
with  a  look  of  embarrassment. 

c 

"  My  friend,  who  is  spending  a  few  weeks  with  me," 
explained  the  doctor. 

She  greeted  me  civilly  and  pressed  the  doctor's  hand 
warmly. 

"  0,  it  is  so  long  since  you  have  called  on  us  that  we 
have  been  talking  of  going  up  to  the  village  to  see  you 
as  soon  as  Robert  can  get  away  from  his  cornfield.  You 
don't  know  how  little  Lucy  has  grown.  You  must  stop 
and  see  her." 

"  She's  coming  to  see  me  herself,"  replied  the  doctor, 
beckoning  to  a  sweet  blue-eyed  child  in  the  doorway. 

The  delighted  mother  caught  up  her  darling  and  held 
her  before  the  doctor. 


MY    SUMMER    WITH    DR.    SINGLETARY.  213 

"  Doesn't  she  look  like  Robert  ?"  she  inquired.  "His 
very  eyes  and  forehead  !  Bless  me  !  here  he  is  now." 

A  stout,  hale  young  farmer,  in  a  coarse  checked  frock 
and  broad  straw  hat,  came  up  from  the  adjoining  field. 

"  Well,  Robert,"  said  the  doctor,  "  how  do  matters  now 
stand  with  you  ?  Well,  I  hope." 

"  All  right,  doctor.  We've  paid  off  the  last  cent  of  the 
mortgage,  and  the  farm  is  all  free  and  clear.  Julia  and  I 
have  worked  hard ;  but  we're  none  the  worse  for  it." 

"  You  look  well  and  happy,  I  am  sure,"  said  the  doctor. 
"  I  don't  think  you  are  sorry  you  took  the  advice  of  the  old 
doctor,  after  all." 

The  young  wife's  head  drooped  until  her  lips  touched 
those  of  her  child. 

"  Sorry  ! "  exclaimed  her  husband.  "  Not  we  !  If  there's 
any  body  happier  than  we  are  within  ten  miles  of  us,  I 
don't  know  them.  Doctor,  I'll  tell  you  what  I  said  to 
Julia  the  night  I  brought  home  that  mortgage.  *  Well,' 
said  I,  'that  debt's  paid;  but  there's  one  debt  we  can 
never  pay  as  long  as  we  live.  *  I  know  it,'  says  she ; 
'  but  Dr.  Singletary  wants  no  better  reward  for  his  kind 
ness  than  to  see  us  live  happily  together  and  do  for 
others  what  he  has  done  for  us.'" 

"  Pshaw ! "  said  the  doctor,  catching  up  his  reins  and 
whip.  "  You  owe  me  nothing.  But  I  must  not  forget 
my  errand.  Poor  old  widow  Osborne  needs  a  watcher 


214  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

to-night ;  and  she  insists  upon  having  Julia  Barnet,  and 
nobody  else.  What  shall  I  tell  her?" 

"I'll  go,  certainly.  I  can  leave  Lucy  now  as  well  as 
not." 

"  Good  by,  neighbors." 

"  Good  by,  doctor." 

As  we  drove  off  I  saw  the  doctor  draw  his  hand  hastily 
across  his  eyes,  and  he  said  nothing  for  some  minutes. 

"  Public  opinion,"  said  he  at  length,  as  if  pursuing  his 
meditations  aloud,  —  "  public  opinion  is,  in  nine  cases  out 
of  ten,  public  folly  and  impertinence.  We  are  slaves 
to  one  another.  We  dare  not  take  counsel  of  our  con 
sciences  and  affections,  but  must  needs  suffer  popular 
prejudice  and  custom  to  decide  for  us,  and  at  their  bidding 
are  sacrificed  love  and  friendship  and  all  the  best  hopes 
of  our  lives.  We  do  not  ask,  What  is  right  and  best  for 
us  ?  but,  What  will  folks  say  of  it  ?  We  have  no  individu 
ality,  no  self-poised  strength,  no  sense  of  freedom.  We 
are  conscious  always  of  the  gaze  of  the  many-eyed  tyrant. 
We  propitiate  him  with  precious  offerings ;  we  burn  in 
cense  perpetually  to  Moloch,  and  pass  through  his  fire  the 
sacred  first  born  of  our  hearts.  How  few  dare  to  seek 
their  own  happiness  by  the  lights  which  God  has  given  them, 
or  have  strength  to  defy  the  false  pride  and  the  prejudice 
of  the  world  and  stand  fast  in  the  liberty  of  Christians  ! 
Can  any  thing  be  more  pitiable  than  the  sight  of  so  many, 


MY    SUMMER    WITH    DR.    SINGLETARY.  215 

who  should  be  the  choosers  and  creators  under  God  of 
their  own  spheres  of  utility  and  happiness,  self-degraded 
into  mere  slaves  of  propriety  and  custom,  their  true 
natures  undeveloped,  their  hearts  cramped  and  shut  up, 
each  afraid  of  his  neighbor  and  his  neighbor  of  him,  living 
a  life  of  unreality,  deceiving  and  being  deceived,  and  for 
ever  walking  in  a  vain  show?  Here,  now,  we  have  just 
left  a  married  couple  who  are  happy  because  they  have 
taken  counsel  of  their  honest  affections  rather  than  of  the 
opinions  of  the  multitude,  and  have  dared  to  be  true  to 
themselves  in  defiance  of  impertinent  gossip." 

"You  speak  of  the  young  farmer  Barnet  and  his  wife, 
I  suppose  ?  "  said  I. 

"Yes.     I  will  give  their  case  as  an  illustration.     Julia 

* 

Atkins  was  the  daughter  of  Ensign  Atkins,  who  lived  on 
the  mill  road,  just  above  Deacon  "Warner's.  When  she 
was  ten  years  old  her  mother  died ;  and  in  a  few  months 
afterwards  her  father  married  Polly  Wiggin,  the  tailoress, 
a  shrewd,  selfish,  managing  woman.  Julia,  poor  girl !  had 
a  sorry  time  of  it ;  for  the  ensign,  although  a  kind  and 
affectionate  man  naturally,  was  too  weak  and  yielding  to 
interpose  between  her  and  his  strong-minded,  sharp- 
tongued  wife.  She  had  one  friend,  however,  who  was 
always  ready  to  sympathize  with  her.  Robert  Barnet 
was  the  son  of  her  next-door  neighbor,  about  two  years 
older  than  herself;  they  had  grown  up  together  as  school 


216  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

companions  and  playmates  ;  and  often  in  my  drives  I  used 
to  meet  them  coming  home  hand  in  hand  from  school,  or 
from  the  woods  with  berries  and  nuts,  talking  and  laugh 
ing  as  if  there  were  no  scolding  step-mothers  in  the 
world. 

"  It  so  fell  out  that  when  Julia  was  in  her  sixteenth  year 
there  came  a  famous  writing  master  to  Peewawkin.  He 
was  a  showy,  dashing  fellow,  with  a  fashionable  dress,  a 
wicked  eye,  and  a  tongue  like  the  old  serpent's  when  he 
tempted  our  great-grandmother.  Julia  was  one  of  his 
scholars,  and  perhaps  the  prettiest  of  them  all.  The  ras 
cal  singled  her  out  from  the  first ;  and,  the  better  to  ac 
complish  his  purpose,  he  left  the  tavern  and  took  lodgings 
at  the  ensign's.  He  goon  saw  how  matters  stood  in  the 
family,  and  governed  himself  accordingly,  taking  special 
pains  to  conciliate  the  ruling  authority.  The  ensign's 
wife  hated  young  Barnet,  and  wished  to  get  rid  of  her 
daughter-in-law.  The  writing  master,  therefore,  had  a 
fair  field.  He  flattered  the  poor  young  girl  by  his  atten 
tions  and  praised  her  beauty.  Her  moral  training  had 
not  fitted  her  to  withstand  this  seductive  influence  ;  no 
mother's  love,  with  its  quick,  instinctive  sense  of  danger 
threatening  its  object,  interposed  between  her  and  the 
tempter.  Her  old  friend  and  playmate  —  he  who  could 
alone  have  saved  her  —  had  been  rudely  repulsed  from 
the  house  by  her  mother-in-law ;  and,  indignant  and 


MY    SUMMER    WITH    DR.    SIXGLETARY.  217 

disgusted,  he  had  retired  from  all  competition  with  his  for 
midable  rival.  Thus  abandoned  to  her  own  undisciplined 
imagination,  with  the  inexperience  of  a  child  and  the  pas 
sions  of  a  woman,  she  was  deceived  by  false  promises,  be 
wildered,  fascinated,  and  beguiled  into  sin. 

"  It  is  the  same  old  story  of  woman's  confidence  and 
man's  duplicity.  The  rascally  writing  master,  under  pre 
tence  of  visiting  a  neighboring  town,  left  his  lodgings  and 
never  returned.  The  last  I  heard  of  him,  he  was  the 
tenant  of  a  western  penitentiary.  Poor  Julia,  driven  in 
disgrace  from  her  father's  house,  found  a  refuge  in  the 
humble  dwelling  of  an  old  woman  of  no  very  creditable 
character.  There  I  was  called  to  visit  her ;  and,  although 
not  unused  to  scenes  of  suffering  and  sorrow,  I  had  never 
before  witnessed  such  an  utter  abandonment  to  grief, 
shame,  and  remorse.  Alas  !  what  sorrow  was  like  unto 
her  sorrow  ?  The  birth  hour  of  her  infant  was  also  that 
of  its  death. 

"  The  agony  of  her  spirit  seemed  greater  than  she  could 
bear.  Her  eyes  were  opened,  and  she  looked  upon  her 
self  with  loathing  and  horror.  She  would  admit  of  no 
hope,  no  consolation  ;  she  would  listen  to  no  palliation  or 
excuse  of  her  guilt.  I  could  only  direct  her  to  that 
Source  of  pardon  and  peace  to  which  the  broken  and  con 
trite  heart  never  appeals  in  vain. 

"  In  the  mean  time  Robert  Barnet  shipped  on  board  a 


218  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

Labrador  vessel.  The  night  before  he  left  he  called  on 
me  and  put  in  my  hand  a  sum  of  money,  small  indeed, 
but  all  he  could  then  command. 

"  '  You  will  see  her  often,'  he  said.  '  Do  not  let  her 
suffer ;  for  she  is  more  to  be  pitied  than  blamed.' 

"  I  answered  him  that  I  would  do  all  in  my  power  for 
her ;  and  added,  that  I  thought  far  better  of  her,  contrite 
and  penitent  as  she  was,  than  of  some  who  were  busy  in 
holding  her  up  to  shame  and  censure. 

"  '  God  bless  you  for  these  words ! '  he  said,  grasping  my 
hand.  '  I  shall  think  of  them  often.  They  will  be  a  com 
fort  to  me.' 

"As  for  Julia,  God  was  more  merciful  to  her  than  man. 
She  rose  from  her  sick  bed  thoughtful  and  humbled,  but 
with  hopes  that  transcended  the  world  of  her  suffering 
and  shame.  She  no  longer  murmured  against  her  sor 
rowful  allotment,  but  accepted  it  with  quiet  and  almost 
cheerful  resignation  as  the  fitting  penalty  of  God's  broken 
laws  and  the  needed  discipline  of  her  spirit.  She  could 
say  with  the  Psalmist,  '  The  judgments  of  the  Lord  are 
true,  justified  in  themselves.  Thou  art  just,  O  Lord,  and 
thy  judgment  is  right.'  Through  my  exertions  she  ob 
tained  employment  in  a  respectable  family,  to  whom  she 
endeared  herself  by  her  faithfulness,  cheerful  obedience, 
and  unaffected  piety. 

"  Her  trials  had  made  her  heart  tender  with  sympathy 


MY    SUMMER    WITH    DR.    SINGLETARY.  219 

for  all  in  affliction.  She  seemed  inevitably  drawn  towards 
the  sick  and  suffering.  In  their  presence  the  burden  of 
her  own  sorrow  seemed  to  fall  off.  She  was  the  most 
cheerful  and  sunny-faced  nurse  I  ever  knew ;  and  I  always 
felt  sure  that  my  own  efforts  would  be  well  seconded  when 
I  found  her  by  the  bedside  of  a  patient.  Beautiful  it  was 
to  see  this  poor  young  girl,  whom  the  world  still  looked 
upon  with  scorn  and  unkindness,  cheering  the  desponding, 
and  imparting,  as  it  were,  her  own  strong,  healthful  life  to 
the  weak  and  faint ;  supporting  upon  her  bosom,  through 
weary  nights,  the  heads  of  those  who,  in  health,  would 
have  deemed  her  touch  pollution ;  or  to  hear  her  singing 
for  the  ear  of  the  dying  some  sweet  hymn  of  pious  hope 
or  resignation,  or  calling  to  mind  the  consolations  of  the 
gospel  and  the  great  love  of  Christ." 

"  I  trust,"  said  I,  "  that  the  feelings  of  the  community 
were  softened  towards  her." 

"  You  know  what  human  nature  is."  returned  the  doc 
tor,  "  and  with  what  hearty  satisfaction  we  abhor  and 
censure  sin  and  folly  in  others.  It  is  a  luxury  which  we 
cannot  easily  forego,  although  our  own  experience  tells  us 
that  the  consequences  of  vice  and  error  are  evil  and  bitter 
enough  without  the  aggravation  of  ridicule  and  reproach 
from  without.  So  you  need  not  be  surprised  to  learn 
that,  in  poor  Julia's  case,  the  charity  of  sinners  like  her 
self  .did  not  keep  pace  with  the  mercy  and  forgiveness 


220  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

of  Him  who  is  infinite  in  purity.  Nevertheless,  I  will  do 
our  people  the  justice  to  say  that  her  blameless  and  self- 
sacrificing  life  was  not  without  its  proper  effect  upon 
them." 

"  What  became  of  Robert  Barnet  ?  "  I  inquired. 

"He  came  back  after  an  absence  of  several  months, 
and  called  on  me  before  he  had  even  seen  his  father  and 
mother.  He  did  not  mention  Julia ;  but  I  saw  that  his 
errand  with  me  concerned  her.  I  spoke  of  her  excel 
lent  deportment  and  her  useful  life,  dwelt  upon  the  ex 
tenuating  circumstances  of  her  error  and  of  her  sincere 
and  hearty  repentance. 

'•'  '  Doctor,'  said  he,  at  length,  with  a  hesitating  and  em 
barrassed  manner,  f  what  should  you  think  if  I  should 
tell  you  that,  after  all  that  has  passed,  I  have  half  made 
up  my  mind  to  ask  her  to  become  my  wife  ? ' 

"  '  I  should  think  better  of  it  if  you  had  wholly  made  up 
your  mind,'  said  I ;  i  and  if  you  were  my  own  son,  I 
wouldn't  ask  for  you  a  better  wife  than  Julia  Atkins. 
Don't  hesitate,  Robert,  on  account  of  what  some  ill-natured 
people  may  say.  Consult  your  own  heart  first  of  all.' 

"  '  I  don't  care  for  the  talk  of  all  the  busybodies  in 
town,'  said  he ;  '  but  I  wish  father  and  mother  could  feel 
as  you  do  about  her.' 

"  '  Leave  that  to  me/  said  I.  *  They  are  kindhearted 
and  reasonable,  and  I  dare  say  will  be  disposed  to  make 


MY    SUMMER    WITH    DR.    SINGLET  ART.  221 

the  best  of  the  matter  when  they  find  you  are  decided  in 
your  purpose.' 

"  I  did  not  see  him  again ;  but  a  few  days  after  I 
learned  from  his  parents  that  he  had  gone  on  another 
voyage.  It  was  now  autumn,  and  the  most  sickly  season 
I  had  ever  known  in  Peewawkin.  Ensign  Atkins  and 
his  wife  both  fell  sick  ;  and  Julia  embraced  with  alacrity 
this  providential  opportunity  to  return  to  her  father's 
house  and  fulfil  the  duties  of  a  daughter.  Under  her 
careful  nursing  the  ensign  soon  got  upon  his  feet ;  but 
his  wife,  whose  constitution  was  weaker,  sunk  under  the 
fever.  She  died  better  than  she  had  lived  —  penitent 
and  loving,  asking  forgiveness  of  Julia  for  her  neglect  and 
unkindness,  and  invoking  blessings  on  her  head.  Julia 
had  now,  for  the  first  time  since  the  death  of  her  mother, 
a  comfortable  home  and  a  father's  love  and  protection. 
Her  sweetness  of  temper,  patient  endurance,  and  forget- 
fulness  of  herself  in  her  labors  for  others  gradually  over 
came  the  scruples  and  hard  feelings  of  her  neighbors. 
They  began  to  question  whether,  after  all,  it  was  meri 
torious  in  them  to  treat  one  like  her  as  a  sinner  beyond 
forgiveness.  Elder  Staples  and  Deacon  Warner  were 
her  fast  friends.  The  deacon's  daughters  —  the  tall,  blue- 
eyed,  brown-locked  girls  you  noticed  in  meeting  the 
other  day  —  set  the  example  among  the  young  people  of 
treating  her  as  their  equal  and  companion.  The  dear 


222  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

good  girls !  They  reminded  me  of  the  maidens  of  Naxos 
cheering  and  comforting  the  unhappy  Ariadne. 

"  One  midwinter  evening  I  took  Julia  with  me  to  a  poor 
sick  patient  of  mine,  who  was  suffering  for  lack  of  attend 
ance.  The  house  where  she  lived  was  in  a  lonely  and 
desolate  place,  some  two  or  three  miles  below  us,  on  a 
sandy  level,  just  elevated  above  the  great  salt  marshes, 
stretching  far  away  to  the  sea.  The  night  set  in  dark 
and  stormy ;  a  fierce  north-easterly  wind  swept  over  the 
level  waste,  driving  thick  snow  clouds  before  it,  shaking 
the  doors  and  windows  of  the  old  house,  and  roaring  in 
its  vast  chimney.  The  woman  was  dying  when  we  ar 
rived,  and  her  drunken  husband  was  sitting  in  stupid 
unconcern  in  the  corner  of  the  fire  place.  A  little  after 
midnight  she  breathed  her  last. 

"  In  the  mean  time  the  storm  had  grown  more  violent ; 
there  was  a  blinding  snowfall  in  the  air ;  and  we  could 
feel  the  jar  of  the  great  waves  as  they  broke  upon  the 
beach. 

"  'It  is  a  terrible  night  for  sailors  on  the  coast,'  I  said, 
breaking  our  long  silence  with  the  dead.  '  God  grant 
them  sea  room!' 

"  Julia  shuddered  as  I  spoke,  and  by  the  dim-flashing 
firelight  I  saw  she  was  weeping.  Her  thoughts,  I  knew, 
were  with  her  old  friend  and  playmate  on  the  wild 
waters. 


MY    SUMMER    "WITH   DR.    SINGLETARY.  223 

"  'Julia,'  said  I, i  do  you  know  that  Robert  Barnet  loves 
you  with  all  the  strength  of  an  honest  and  true  heart  ? ' 

"  She  trembled,  and  her  voice  faltered  as  she  confessed 
that  when  Robert  was  at  home  he  had  asked  her  to  be 
come  his  wife. 

" '  And,  like  a  fool,  you  refused  him,  I  suppose  ?  —  the 
brave,  generous  fellow  ! ' 

"  *  0  doctor  ! '  she  exclaimed.  '  How  can  you  talk  so  ? 
It  is  just  because  Robert  is  so  good,  and  noble,  and  gen 
erous  that  I  dared  not  take  him  at  his  word.  You  your 
self,  doctor,  would  have  despised  me  if  I  had  taken 
advantage  of  his  pity  or  his  kind  remembrance  of  the  old 
days  when  we  were  children  together.  I  have  already 
brought  too  much  disgrace  upon  those  dear  to  me.' 

"  I  was  endeavoring  to  convince  her,  in  reply,  that  she 
was  doing  injustice  to  herself  and  wronging  her  best 
friend,  whose  happiness  depended  in  a  great  measure  upon 
her,  when,  borne  on  the  strong  blast,  we  both  heard  a  faint 
cry  as  of  a  human  being  in  distress.  I  threw  up  the  win 
dow  which  opened  seaward,  and  we  leaned  out  into  the 
wild  night,  listening  breathlessly  for  a  repetition  of  the 
sound. 

"Once  more,  and  once  only,  we  heard  it — a  low, 
smothered,  despairing  cry. 

" '  Some  one  is  lost,  and  perishing  in  the  snow,'  said 
Julia.  *  The  sound  comes  in  the  direction  of  the  beach 


224  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

plum  bushes  on  the   side  of  the  marsh.     Let  us  go  at 
once.' 

"  She  snatched  up  her  hood  and  shawl  and  was  already 
at  the  door.  I  found  and  lighted  a  lantern  and  soon 
overtook  her.  The  snow  was  already  deep  and  badly 
drifted,  and  it  was  with  extreme  difficulty  that  we  could 
force  our  way  against  the  storm.  We  stopped  often 'to 
take  breath  and  listen ;  but  the  roaring  of  the  wind  and 
waves  was  alone  audible.  At  last  we  reached  a  slightly 
elevated  spot,  overgrown  with  dwarf  plum  trees,  whose 
branches  were  dimly  visible  above  the  snow. 

" ( Here,  bring  the  lantern  here  ! '  cried  Julia,  who  had 
strayed  a  few  yards  from  me.  I  hastened  to  her,  and 
found  her  lifting  up  the  body  of  a  man  who  was  appar 
ently  insensible.  The  rays  of  the  lantern  fell  full  upon 
his  face,  and  we  both,  at  the  same  instant,  recognized 
Robert  Barnet.  Julia  did  not  shriek  nor  faint;  but, 
kneeling  in  the  snow  and  still  supporting  the  body,  she 
turned  towards  me  a  look  of  earnest  and  fearful  inquiry. 

" '  Courage  ! '  said  I.  *  He  still  lives.  He  is  only  over 
come  with  fatigue  and  cold.' 

"With  much  difficulty — partly  carrying  and  partly 
dragging  him  through  the  snow — we  succeeded  in  getting 
him  to  the  house,  where,  in  a  short  time,  he  so  far  recovered 
as  to  be  able  to  speak.  Julia,  who  had  been  my  prompt  and 
efficient  assistant  in  his  restoration,  retired  into  the  shadow 


MY    SUMMER   WITH    DR.    SINGLETARY.  225 

of  the  room  as  soon  as  he  began  to  rouse  himself  and  look 
about  him.  He  asked  where  he  was  and  who  was  with 
me,  saying  that  his  head  was  so  confused  that  he  thought 
he  saw  Julia  Atkins  by  the  bedside.  'You  were  not 
mistaken,'  said  I ;  *  Julia  is  here,  and  you  owe  your  life 
to  her/  He  started  up  and  gazed  round  the  room.  I 
beckoned  Julia  to  the  bedside ;  and  I  shall  never  forget 
the  grateful  earnestness  with  which  he  grasped  her  hand 
and  called  upon  God  to  bless  her.  Some  folks  think  me 
a  toughhearted  old  fellow,  and  so  I  am ;  but  that  scene 
was  more  than  I  could  bear  without  shedding  tears. 

"  Robert  told  us  that  his  vessel  had  been  thrown  upon 
the  beach  a  mile  or  two  below,  and  that  he  feared  all  the 
crew  had  perished  save  himself.  Assured  of  his  safety,  I 
went  out  once  more,  in  the  faint  hope  of  hearing  the  voice 
of  some  survivor  of  the  disaster ;  but  I  listened  only  to 
the  heavy  thunder  of  the  surf  rolling  along  the  horizon  of 
the  east.  The  storm  had  in  a  great  measure  ceased ;  the 
gray  light  of  dawn  was  just  visible ;  and  I  was  gratified 
to  see  two  of  the  nearest  neighbors  approaching  the  house. 
On  being  informed  of  the  wreck  they  immediately  started 
for  the  beach,  where  several  dead  bodies,  half  buried  in 
snow,  confirmed  the  fears  of  the  solitary  survivor. 

"  The  result  of  all  this  you  can  easily  conjecture.  Robert 
Barnet  abandoned  the  sea,  and,  with  the  aid  of  some  of 
his  friends,  purchased  the  farm  where  he  now  lives,  and 
15 


226  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

the  anniversary  of  his  shipwreck  found  him  the  husband 
of  Julia.  I  can  assure  you  I  have  had  every  reason  to 
congratulate  myself  on  my  share  in  the  matchmaking. 
Nobody  ventured  to  find  fault  with  it  except  two  or  three 
sour  old  busybodies,  who,  as  Elder  Staples  well  says, 
'would  have  cursed  her  whom  Christ  had  forgiven,  and 
spurned  the  weeping  Magdalen  from  the  feet  of  her 
Lord.'" 


CHAPTER   IV. 

THE    HILLSIDE. 

It  was  one  of  the  very  brightest  and  breeziest  of  sum 
mer  mornings  that  the  doctor  and  myself  walked  home 
ward  from  the  town  poorhouse,  where  he  had  always  one 
or  more  patients,  and  where  his  coming  was  always  wel 
comed  by  the  poor,  diseased,  and  age-stricken  inmates. 
Dark,  miserable  faces  of  lonely  and  unreverenced  age, 
written  over  with  the  grim  records  of  sorrow  and  sin, 
seemed  to  brighten  at  his  approach  as  with  an  inward 
light,  as  if  the  good  man's  presence  had  power  to  call  the 
better  natures  of  the  poor  unfortunates  into  temporary 
ascendency.  Weary,  fretful  women  —  happy  mothers  in 
happy  homes,  perchance,  half  a  century  before  —  felt  their 


MY    SUMMER    WITH    DR.    SIXGLETARY.  227 

hearts  warm  and  expand  under  the  influence  of  his  kind 
salutations  and  the  ever-patient  good  nature  with  which 
he  listened  to  their  reiterated  complaints  of  real  or  im 
aginary  suffering.  However  it  might  be  with  others,  he 
never  forgot  the  man  or  the  woman  in  the  pauper.  There 
was  nothing  like  condescension  or  consciousness  in  his 
charitable  ministrations ;  for  he  was  one  of  the  few  men  I 
have  ever  known  in  whom  the  milk  of  human  kindness 
was  never  soured  by  contempt  for  humanity  in  whatever 
form  it  presented  itself.  Thus  it  was  that  his  faithful 
performance  of  the  duties  of  his  profession,  however  re 
pulsive  and  disagreeable,  had  the  effect  of  Murillo's  pic 
ture  of  St.  Isabel  of  Hungary  binding  up  the  ulcered 
limbs  of  the  beggars.  The  moral  beauty  transcended  the 
loathsomeness  of  physical  evil  and  deformity. 

Our  nearest  route  home  lay  across  the  pastures  and 
over  Blueberry  Hill,  just  at  the  foot  of  which  we  en 
countered  Elder  Staples  and  Skipper  Evans,  who  had 
been  driving  their  cows  to  pasture,  and  were  now  leisurely 
strolling  back  to  the  village.  We  toiled  together  up  the 
hill  in  the  hot  sunshine,  and,  just  on  its  eastern  declivity, 
were  glad  to  find  a  white-oak  tree,  leaning  heavily  over  a 
little  ravine,  from  the  bottom  of  which  a  clear  spring  of 
water  bubbled  up  and  fed  a  small  rivulet,  whose  track  of 
darker  green  might  be  traced  far  down  the  hill  to  the 
meadow  at  its  foot. 


228  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

A  broad  shelf  of  rock  by  the  side  of  the  spring,  cush 
ioned  with  mosses,  afforded  us  a  comfortable  resting- 
place.  Parson  Staples,  in  his  faded  black  coat  and  white 
neckcloth,  leaned  his  quiet,  contemplative  head  on  his 
silver-mounted  cane :  right  opposite  him  sat  the  doctor, 
with  his  sturdy,  rotund  figure,  and  broad,  seamed  face, 
surmounted  by  a  coarse  stubble  of  iron-gray  hair,  the 
sharp  and  almost  severe  expression  of  his  keen  gray  eyes 
flashing  under  their  dark  penthouse,  happily  relieved  by 
the  softer  lines  of  his  mouth,  indicative  of  his  really  genial 
and  generous  nature.  A  small,  sinewy  figure,  half  doubled 
up,  with  his  chin  resting  on  his  rough  palms,  Skipper 
Evans  sat  on  a  lower  projection  of  the  rock  just  beneath 
him,  in  an  attentive  attitude,  as  at  the  feet  of  Gamaliel. 
Dark  and  dry  as  one  of  his  own  dunfish  on  a  Labrador 
flake,  or  a  sealskin  in  an  Esquimaux  hut,  he  seemed 
entirely  exempt  from  one  of  the  great  trinity  of  tempta 
tions  ;  and,  granting  him  a  safe  deliverance  from  the  world 
and  the  devil,  he  had  very  little  to  fear  from  the  flesh. 

We  were  now  in  the  doctor's  favorite  place  of  resort, 
green,  cool,  quiet,  and  sightly  withal.  The  keen  light 
revealed  every  object  in  the  long  valley  below  us ;  the 
fresh  west  wind  fluttered  the  oak  leaves  *  above ;  and  the 
low  voice  of  the  water,  coaxing  or  scolding  its  wray  over 
bare  roots  or  mossy  stones,  was  just  audible. 

"  Doctor,"  said  I,  "  this  spring,  with  the  oak  hanging 


MY    SUMMER    WITH   DR.    SIXGLETARY.  229 

over  it,  is,  I  suppose,  your  Fountain  of  Bandusia.  You 
remember  what  Horace  says  of  his  spring,  which  yielded 
such  cool  refreshment  when  the  dogstar  had  set  the  day 
on  fire.  What  a  fine  picture  he  gives  us  of  this  charming 
feature  of  his  little  farm  !  " 

The  doctor's  eye  kindled.  "  I'm  glad  to  see  you  like 
Horace;  not  merely  as  a  clever  satirist  and  writer  of 
amatory  odes,  but  as  a  true  lover  of  Nature.  How  pleas 
ant  are  his  simple  and  beautiful  descriptions  of  his  yellow, 
flowing  Tiber,  the  herds  arid  herdsmen,  the  harvesters, 
the  grape  vintage,  the  varied  aspects  of  his  Sabine  retreat 
in  the  fierce  summer  heats,  or  when  the  snowy  forehead 
of  Soracte  purpled  in  winter  sunsets  !  Scattered  through 
his  odes  and  the  occasional  poems  jvhich  he  addresses  to 
his  city  friends,  you  find  these  graceful  and  inimitable 
touches  of  rural  beauty,  each  a  picture  in  itself." 

"  It  is  long  since  I  have  looked  at  my  old  school-day 
companions  the  classics,"  said  Elder  Staples ;  "  but  I  re 
member  Horace  only  as  a  light,  witty,  careless  epicu 
rean,  famous  for  his  lyrics  in  praise  of  Falernian  wine  and 
questionable  women." 

"  Somewhat  too  much  of  that,  doubtless,"  said  the 
doctor;  "but  to  me  Horace  is  serious,  and  profoundly 
suggestive,  nevertheless.  Had  I  laid  him  aside  on  quit 
ting  college,  as  you  did,  I  should  perhaps  have  only 
remembered  such  of  his  epicurean  lyrics  as  recommended 


230  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

themselves  to  the  warm  fancy  of  boyhood.  Ah,  Elder 
Staples,  there  was  a  time  when  the  Lyces  and  Glyceras 
of  the  poet  were  no  fiction  to  us.  They  played  blind- 
man's  buff  with  us  in  the  farmer's  kitchen,  sang  with  us  in 
the  meeting  house,  and  romped  and  laughed  with  us  at 
huskings  and  quilting  parties.  Grandmothers  and  sober 
spinsters  as  they  now  are,  the  change  in  us  is  perhaps 
greater  than  in  them." 

"  Too  true,"  replied  the  elder,  the  smile  which  had  just 
played  over  his  pale  face  fading  into  something  sadder 
than  its  habitual  melancholy.  "  The  living  companions 
of  our  youth,  whom  we  daily  meet,  are  more  strange  to  us 
than  the  dead  in  yonder  graveyard.  They  alone  remain 
unchanged ! " 

"  Speaking  of  Horace,"  continued  the  doctor,  in  a  voice 
slightly  husky  with  feeling,  "  he  gives  us  glowing  descrip 
tions  of  his  winter  circles  of  friends,  where  mirth  and 
wine,  music  and  beauty,  charm  away  the  hours,  and  of 
summer-day  recreations  beneath  the  vine-wedded  elms  of 
the  Tiber  or  on  the  breezy  slopes  of  Soracte ;  yet  I  sel 
dom  read  them  without  a  feeling  of  sadness.  A  low  wail 
of  inappeasable  sorrow,  an  undertone  of  dirges,  mingles 
with  his  gay  melodies.  His  immediate  horizon  is  bright 
with  sunshine  ;  but  beyond  is  a  land  of  darkness,  the 
light  whereof  is  darkness.  It  is  walled  about  by  the  ever 
lasting  night.  The  skeleton  sits  at  his  table ;  a  shadow 


MY    SUMMER    WITH    DR.    S1NGLETARY.  231 

of  the  inevitable  terror  rests  upon  all  his  pleasant  pic 
tures.  He  was  without  God  in  the  world ;  he  had  no 
clear  abiding  hope  of  a  life  beyond  that  which  was  has 
tening  to  a  close.  Eat  and  drink,  he  tells  us  ;  enjoy  pres 
ent  health  and  competence ;  alleviate  present  evils,  or  for 
get  them,  in  social  intercourse,  in  wine,  music,  and  sen 
sual  indulgence  ;  for  to-morrow  we  must  die.  Death  was 

i 
in  his  view  no  mere  change  of  condition  and  relation  ;  it 

was  the  black  end  of  all.  It  is  evident  that  he  placed 
no  reliance  on  the  mythology  of  his  time,  and  that  he  re 
garded  the  fables  of  the  Elysian  Fields  and  their  dim  and 
wandering  ghosts  simply  in  the  light  of  convenient  poetic 
fictions  for  illustration  and  imagery.  Nothing  can,  in  my 
view,  be  sadder  than  his  attempts  at  consolation  for 
the  loss  of  friends.  Witness  his  Ode  to  Virgil  on  the 
death  of  Quintilius.  He  tells  his  illustrious  friend  sim 
ply  that  his  calamity  is  without  hope,  irretrievable,  and 
eternal ;  that  it  is  idle  to  implore  the  gods  to  restore  the 
dead  ;  and  that,  although  his  lyre  may  be  more  sweet 
than  that  of  Orpheus,  he  cannot  reanimate  the  shadow  of 
his  friend  nor  persuade  'the  ghost-compelling  god*  to 
unbar  the  gates  of  death.  He  urges  patience  as  the  sole 
resource.  He  alludes  not  unfrequently  to  his  own  death 
in  the  same  despairing  tone.  In  the  Ode  to  Torquatus 
—  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  touching  of  all  he  has 
written  —  he  sets  before  his  friend,  in  melancholy  con- 


232  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

trast,  the  return  of  the  seasons,  and  of  the  moon  renewed 
in  brightness,  with  the  end  of  man,  who  sinks  into  the 
endless  dark,  leaving  nothing  save  ashes  and  shadows. 
He  then,  in  the  true  spirit  of  his  philosophy,  urges  Tor- 
quatus  to  give  his  present  hour  and  wealth  to  pleasures 
and  delights,  as  he  had  no  assurance  of  to-morrow." 

"  In  something  of  the  same  strain,"  said  I,  "  Moschus 
moralizes  on  the  death  of  Bion :  — 

1  Our  trees  and  plants  revive ;  the  rose 
In  annual  youth  of  beauty  glows  ; 
But  when  the  pride  of  Nature  dies,  • 

Man,  who  alone  is  great  and  wise, 
No  more  he  rises  into  light, 
The  wakeless  sleeper  of  eternal  night.'  " 

"  It  reminds  me,"  said  Elder  Staples,  "  of  the  sad  bur 
den  of  Ecclesiastes,  the  mournfulest  book  of  Scripture ; 
because,  while  the  preacher  dwells  with  earnestness  upon 
the  vanity  and  uncertainty  of  the  things  of  time  and 
sense,  he  has  no  apparent  hope  of  immortality  to  re 
lieve  the  dark  picture.  Like  Horace,  he  sees  nothing 
better  than  to  eat  his  bread  with  joy  and  drink  his  wine 
with  a  merry  heart.  It  seems  to  me  the  wise  man  might 
have  gone  farther  in  his  enumeration  of  the  folly  and 
emptiness  of  life,  and  pronounced  his  own  prescription 
for  the  evil  vanity  also.  What  is  it  but  plucking  flowers 


MY    SUMMER    WITH    DR.    SINGLETARY.  233 

on  the  banks  of  the  stream  which  hurries  us  over  the 
cataract,  or  feasting  on  the  thin  crust  of  a  volcano  upon 
delicate  meats  prepared  over  the  fires  which  are  soon  to 
ingulf  us  ?  O,  what  a  glorious  contrast  to  this  is  the 
gospel  of  Him  who  brought  to  light  life  and  immortality  ! 
The  transition  from  the  Koheleth  to  the  epistles  of  Paul 
is  like  passing  from  a  cavern,  where  the  artificial  light 
falls  indeed  upon  gems  and  crystals,  but  is  every  where 
circumscribed  and  overshadowed  by  unknown  and  unex 
plored  darkness,  into  the  warm  light  and  free  atmosphere 
of  day." 

"  Yet,"  I  asked,  "  are  there  not  times  when  we  all  wish 
for  some  clearer  evidence  of  immortal  life  than  has  been 
afforded  us  ;  when  we  even  turn  away  unsatisfied  from  the 
pages  of  the  holy  book,  with  all  the  mysterious  prob 
lems  of  life  pressing  about  us  and  clamoring  for  solution, 
till,  perplexed  and  darkened,  we  look  up  to  the  still 
heavens,  as  if  we  sought  thence  an  answer,  visible  or 
audible,  to  their  questionings  ?  We  want  something  be 
yond  the  bare  announcement  of  the  momentous  fact  of  a 
future  life  ;  wTe  long  for  a  miracle  to  confirm  our  weak 
faith  and  silence  forever  the  doubts  which  torment  us." 

"  And  what  would  a  miracle  avail  us  at  such  times  of 
•darkness  and  strong  temptation  ?  "  said  the  elder.  "  Have 
we  not  been  told  that  they  whom  Moses  and  the  prophets 
have  failed  to  convince  would  not  believe  although  one 


234  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

rose  from  the  dead  ?  That  God  has  revealed  no  more  to 
us,  is  to  my  mind  sufficient  evidence  that  he  has  revealed 
enough." 

"  May  it  not  be,"  queried  the  doctor,  "  that  Infinite 
Wisdom  sees  that  a  clearer  and  fuller  revelation  of  the 
future  life  would  render  us  less  willing  or  able  to  perform 
our  appropriate  duties  in  the  present  condition  ?  En 
chanted  by  a  clear  view  of  the  heavenly  hills,  and  of  our 
loved  ones  beckoning  us  from  the  pearl  gates  of  the  city 
of  God,  could  we  patiently  work  out  our  life  task  here, 
or  make  the  necessary  exertions  to  provide  for  the  wants 
of  these  bodies  whose  encumbrance  alone  can  prevent  us 
from  rising  to  a  higher  plane  of  existence  ?  " 

"  I  reckon,"  said  the  skipper,  who  had  been  an  atten 
tive,  although  at  times  evidently  a  puzzled,  listener,  "  that 
it  would  be  with  us  pretty  much  as  it  was  with  a  crew  of 
French  sailors  that  I  once  shipped  at  the  Isle  of  France 
for  the  port  of  Marseilles.  I  never  had  better  hands 
until  we  hove  in  sight  of  their  native  country,  which  they 
hadn't  seen  for  years.  The  first  look  of  the  land  set  'em 
all  crazy ;  they  danced,  laughed,  shouted,  put  on  their 
best  clothes ;  and  I  had  to  get  new  hands  to  help  me 
bring  the  vessel  to  her  moorings." 

"  Your  story  is  quite  to  the  point,  skipper,"  said  the* 
doctor.  "  If  things  had  been  ordered  differently,  we 
should  all,  I  fear,  be  disposed  to  quit  work  and  fall  into 


MY    SUMMER    WITH    DR.    SINGLETARY.  235 

• 

absurdities  like  your  French  sailors,  and  so  fail  of  bring 
ing  the  world  fairly  into  port." 

"  God's  ways  are  best,"  said  the  elder ;  "  and  I  don't 
see  as  we  can  do  better  than  to  submit  with  reverence  to 
the  very  small  part  of  them  which  he  has  made  known  to 
us,  and  to  trust  him  like  loving  and  dutiful  children  for 
the  rest." 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE   HILLSIDE. 

The  pause  which  naturally  followed  the  observation 
of  the  elder  was  broken  abruptly  by  the  skipper. 

"  Hillo !  "  he  cried,  pointing  with  the  glazed  hat  with 
which  he  had  been  fanning  himself.  "  Here  away  in  the 
north-east.  Going  down  the  coast  for  better  fishing,  I 
guess." 

"  An  eagle,  as  I  live  !  "  exclaimed  the  doctor,  following 
with  his  cane  the  direction  of  the  skipper's  hat.  "Just 
see  how  royally  he  wheels  upward  and  onward,  his  sail- 
broad  wings  stretched  motionless,  save  an  occasional  flap 
to  keep  up  his  impetus !  Look !  the  circle  in  which  he 
moves  grows  narrower ;  he  is  a  gray  cloud  in  the  sky,  a 
point,  a  mere  speck  or  dust  mote.  And  now  he  is 


236  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

* 

clean  swallowed  up  in  the  distance.  The  wise  man  of 
old  did  well  to  confess  his  ignorance  of  '  the  way  of  an 
eagle  in  the  air.'  " 

"  The  eagle,"  said  Elder  Staples,  "  seems  to  have  been 
a  favorite  illustration  of  the  sacred  penman.  '  They 
that  wait  upon  the  Lord  shall  renew  their  strength  ;  they 
shall  mount  upward  as  on  the  wings  of  an  eagle.' " 

"What  think  you  of  this  passage?"  said  the  doctor. 
"  *  As  when  a  bird  hath  flown  through  the  air,  there  is  no 
token  of  her  way  to  be  found ;  but  the  light  air,  beaten 
with  the  stroke  of  her  wings  and  parted  by  the  violent 
noise  and  motion  thereof,  is  passed  through,  and  therein 
afterward  no  sign  of  her  path  can  be  found.' " 

"  I  don't  remember  the  passage,"  said  the  elder. 

"  I  dare  say  not,"  quoth  the  doctor.  "  You  clergymen 
take  it  for  granted  that  no  good  thing  can  come  from 
the  Nazareth  of  the  Apocrypha.  But  where  will  you 
find  any  thing  more  beautiful  and  cheering  than  these 
verses  in  connection  with  that  which  I  just  cited  ?  — '  The 
hope  of  the  ungodly  is  like  dust  that  is  blown  away 
by  the  wind;,  like  the  thin  foam  which  is  driven  by 
the  storm ;  like  the  smoke  which  is  scattered  here  and 
there  by  the  whirlwind  :  it  passeth  away  like  the  remem 
brance  of  a  guest  that  tarrieth  but  a  day.  But  the 
righteous  live  forevermore ;  their  reward  also  is  with 
the  Lord,  and  the  care  of  them  with  the  Most  High. 


MY    SUMMER    WITH    DR.    SINGLETARY.  237 

Therefore  shall  they  receive  a  glorious  kingdom  and 
a  beautiful  crown  from  the  Lord's  hand;  for  with  his 
right  hand  shall  he  cover  them,  and  with  his  arm  shall 
he  protect  them.'" 

"  That,  if  I  mistake  not,  is  from  the  "Wisdom  of  Solo 
mon,"  said  the  elder.  "  It  is  a  striking  passage  ;  and 
there  are  many  such  in  the  uncanonical  books." 

"  Canonical  or  not,"  answered  the  doctor,  "  it  is  God's 
truth,  and  stands  in  no  need  of  the  indorsement  of  a  set 
of  well-meaning  but  purblind  bigots  and  pedants,  who 
presumed  to  set  metes  and  bounds  to  divine  inspiration, 
and  decide  by  vote  what  is  God's  truth  and  what  is  the 
devil's  falsehood.  But,  speaking  of  eagles,  I  never  see 
one  of  these  spiteful  old  sea  robbers  without  fancying  that 
he  may  be  the  soul  of  a  mad  Viking  of  the  middle  cen 
turies.  Depend  upon  it,  that  Italian  philosopher  was  not 
far  out  of  the  way  in  his  ingenious  speculations  upon  the 
affinities  and  sympathies  existing  between  certain  men 
and  certain  animals,  and  in  fancying  that  he  saw  feline 
or  canine  traits  and  similitudes  in  the  countenances  of 
his  acquaintance." 

"  Swedenborg  tells  us,"  said  I,  "  that  lost  human  souls 
in  the  spiritual  world,  as  seen  by  the  angels,  frequently 
wear  the  outward  shapes  of  the  lower  animals,  —  for  in 
stance,  the  gross  and  sensual  look  like  swine,  and  the 
cruel  and  obscene  like  foul  birds  of  prey,  such  as  hawks 


238  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

and  vultures,  —  and  that  they  are  entirely  unconscious  of 
the  metamorphosis,  imagining  themselves  'marvellous 
proper  men/  and  are  quite  well  satisfied  with  their  com 
pany  and  condition." 

"  Swedenborg,"  said  the  elder,  "  was  an  insane  man, 
or  worse." 

"  Perhaps  so,"  said  the  doctor ;  "  but  there  is  a  great 
deal  of '  method  in  his  madness/  and  plain  common  sense 
too.  There  is  one  grand  and  beautiful  idea  underlying 
all  his  revelations  or  speculations  about  the  future  life. 
It  is  this:  that  each  spirit  chooses  its  own  society,  and 
naturally  finds  its  fitting  place  and  sphere  of  action,  —  fol 
lowing  in  the  new  life,  as  in  the  present,  the  leading  of 
its  prevailing  loves  and  desires,  —  and  that  hence  none 
are  arbitrarily  compelled  to  be  good  or  evil,  happy  or 
miserable.  A  great  law  of  attraction  and  gravitation 
governs  the  spiritual  as  well  as  the  material  universe ; 
but,  in  obeying  it,  the  spirit  retains  in  the  new  life  what 
ever  freedom  of  will  it  possessed  in  its  first  stage  of  being. 
But  I  see  the  elder  shakes  his  head,  as  much  as  to  say,  I 
am  '  wise  above  what  is  written/  or,  at  any  rate,  meddling 
with  matters  beyond  my  comprehension.  Our  young 
friend  here,"  he  continued,  turning  to  me,  "  has  the  appear 
ance  of  a  listener ;  but  I  suspect  he  is  busy  with  his  own 
reveries,  or  enjoying  the  fresh  sights  and  sounds  of  this 
fine  morning.  I  doubt  whether  our  discourse  has  edified 
him."  ' 


MY    SUMMER    WITH    DR.    SINGLETART.  239 

"  Pardon  me,"  said  I ;  "  I  was,  indeed,  listening  to  an 
other  and  older  oracle." 

"  Well,  tell  us  what  you  hear,"  said  the  doctor. 

"  A  faint,  low  murmur,  rising  and  falling  on  the  wind. 
Now  it  comes  rolling  in  upon  me  wave  after  wave  of 
sweet,  solemn  music.  There  was  a  grand  organ  swell ; 
and  now  it  dies  away  as  into  the  infinite  distance ;  but  I 
still  hear  it,  —  whether  with  ear  or  spirit  I  know  not,  — 
the  very  ghost  of  sound." 

"Ah,  yes,"  said  the  doctor  ;  "  I  understand  it ;  it  is  the 
voice  of  the  pines  yonder  —  a  sort  of  morning  song  of 
praise  to  the  Giver  of  life  and  Maker  of  beauty.  My  ear 
is  dull  now  and  I  cannot  hear  it ;  but  I  know  it  is  sound 
ing  on  as  it  did  when  I  first  climbed  up  here  in  the  bright 
June  mornings  of  boyhood,  and  it  will  sound  on  just  the 
same  when  the  deafness  of  the  grave  shall  settle  upon  my 
failing  senses.  Did  it  never  occur  to  you  that  this  deaf 
ness  and  blindness  to  accustomed  beauty  and  harmony  is 
one  of  the  saddest  thoughts  connected  with  the  great 
change  which  awaits  us  ?  Have  you  not  felt  at  times 
that  our  ordinary  conceptions  of  heaven  itself,  derived 
from  the  vague  hints  and  Oriental  imagery  of  the  Scrip 
tures,  are  sadly  inadequate  to  our  human  wants  and 
hopes  ?  How  gladly  would  we  forego  the  golden  streets 
and  gates  of  pearl,  the  thrones,  temples,  and  harps,  for  the 
sunset  lights  of  our  native  valleys ;  the  woodpaths,  whose 


240  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

moss  carpets  are  woven  with  violets  and  wild  flowers; 
the  songs  of  birds,  the  low  of  cattle,  the  hum  of  bees  in 
the  apple  blossom  —  the  sweet,  familiar  voices  of  human 
life  and  nature  !  In  the  place  of  strange  splendors  and 
unknown  music,  should  we  not  welcome  rather  whatever 
reminded  us  of  the  common  sights  and  sounds  of  our  old 
home?" 

"  You  touch  a  sad  chord,  doctor,"  said  I.  "  Would  that 
we  could  feel  assured  of  the  eternity  of  all  we  love ! " 

"And  have  I  not  an  assurance  of  it  at  this  very 
moment  ? "  returned  the  doctor.  "  My  outward  ear 
fails  me ;  yet  I  seem  to  hear  as  formerly  the  sound  of 
the  wind  in  the  pines.  I  close  my  eyes;  and  the  picture 
of  my  home  is  still  before  me.  I  see  the  green  hill 
slope  and  meadows ;  the  white  shaft  of  the  village 
steeple  springing  up  from  the  midst  of  maples  .and  elms ; 
the  river  all  afire  with  sunshine;  the  broad,  dark  belt 
of  woodland;  and,  away  beyond,  all  the  blue  level  of 
the  ocean.  And  now,*  by  a  single  effort  of  will,  I  can 
call  before  me  a  winter  picture  of  the  same  scene.  It 
is  morning  as  now  ;  but  how  different  !  All  night  has  the 
white  meteor  fallen  in  broad  flake  or  minutest  crystal,  the 
sport  and  plaything  of  winds  that  have  wrought  it  into  a 
thousand  shapes  of  wild  beauty.  Hill  and  valley,  tree 
and  fence,  wood  sled  and  well  sweep,  barn  and  pigsty, 
fishing  smacks  frozen  up  at  the  wharf,  ribbed  monsters  of 


MY    SUMMER    WITH    DR.    SIXGLETARY.  241 

dismantled  hulks  scattered  along  the  river  side,  all  lie 
transfigured  in  the  white  glory  and  sunshine.  The  eye, 
wherever  it  turns,  aches  with  the  cold  brilliance,  unre 
lieved  save  where  the  blue  smoke  of  morning  fires  curl 
lazily  up  from  the  Parian  roofs,  or  where  the  main  chan 
nel  of  the  river,  as  yet  unfrozen,  shows  its  long  winding 
line  of  dark  water  glistening  like  a  snake  in  the  sun. 
Thus  you  perceive  that  the  spirit  sees  and  hears  without 
the  aid  of  bodily  organs ;  and  why  may  it  not  be  so  here 
after  ?  Grant  but  memory  to  us,  and  we  can  lose  nothing 
by  death.  The  scenes  now  passing  before  us  will  live  in 
eternal  reproduction,  created  anew  at  will.  We  assuredly 
shall  not  love  heaven  the  less  that  it  is  separated  by  no 
impassable  gulf  from  this  fair  and  goodly  earth,  and  that 
the  pleasant  pictures  of  time  linger  like  sunset  clouds 
along  the  horizon  of  eternity.  When  I  was  younger,  I 
used  to  be  greatly  troubled  by  the  insecure  tenure  by 
which  my  senses  held  the  beauty  and  harmony  of  the 
outward  world.  When  I  looked  at  the  moonlight  on  the 
water,  or  the  cloud  shadows  on  the  hills,  or  the  sunset  sky, 
with  the  tall,  black  tree  boles  and  waving  foilage  relieved 
against  it,  or  when  I  heard  a  mellow  gush  of  music  from 
the  brown-breasted  fife  bird  in  the  summer  woods,  or  the 
merry  quaver  of  the  bobolink  in  the  corn  land,  the  thought 
of  an  eternal  loss  of  these  familiar  sights  and  sounds  would 
sometimes  thrill  through  me  with  a  sharp  and  bitter  pain. 
16 


242  RECREATIONS    AXU    MISCELLANIES. 

I  have  reason  to  thank  God  that  this  fear  no  longer 
troubles  me.  Nothing  that  is  really  valuable  and  neces 
sary  for  us  can  ever  be  lost.  The  present  will  live  here 
after;  memory  will  bridge  over  the  gulf  between  the  two 
worlds;  for  only  on  the  condition  of  their  intimate  union 
can  we  preserve  our  identity  and  personal  consciousness. 
Blot  out  the  memory  of  this  world,  and  what  would  heaven 
or  hell  be  to  us  ?  Nothing  whatever.  Death  would  be 
simple  annihilation  of  our  actual  selves,  and  the  substitu 
tion  therefor  of  a  new  creation,  in  which  we  should  have 
no  more  interest  than  in  an  inhabitant  of  Jupiter  or  the 
fixed  stars." 

The  elder,  who  had  listened  silently  thus  far,  not 
without  an  occasional  and  apparently  involuntary  man 
ifestation  of  dissent,  here  interposed. 

"Pardon  me,  my  dear  friend,"  said  he;  "but  I  must 
needs  say  that  I  look  upon  speculations  of  this  kind,  how 
ever  ingenious  or  plausible,  as  unprofitable,  and  well  nigh 
presumptuous.  For  myself,  I  only  know  that  I  am  a 
weak,  sinful  man,  accountable  to  and  cared  for  by  a  just 
and  merciful  God.  What  he  has  in  reserve  for  me  here 
after  I  know  not,  nor  have  I  any  warrant  to  pry  into  his 
secrets.  I  do  not  know  what  it  is  to  pass  from  one  life  to 
another ;  but  I  humbly  hope  that,  when  I  am  sinking  in 
the  dark  waters,  I  may  hear  his  voice  of  compassion  and 
encouragement,  '  It  is  I ;  be  not  afraid.' " 


MY    SUMMER    WITH    DR.    SINGLETARY.  243 

"  Amen,"  said  the  skipper,  solemnly. 

"  I  dare  say  the  parson  is  right,  in  the  main,"  said  the 
doctor.  "  Poor  creatures  at  the  best,  it  is  safer  for  us 
to  trust,  like  children,  in  the  goodness  of  our  heavenly 
Father,  than  to  speculate  too  curiously  in  respect  to  the 
things  of  a  future  life ;  and,  notwithstanding  all  I  have 
said,  I  quite  agree  with  good  old  Bishop  Hall :  '  It  is 
enough  for  me  to  rest  in  the  hope  that  I  shall  one  day  see 
them ;  in  the  mean  time,  let  me  be  learnedly  ignorant  and 
incuriously  devout,  silently  blessing  the  power  and  wis 
dom  of  my  infinite  Creator,  who  knows  how  to  honor 
himself  by  all  those  unrevealed  and  glorious  subordi 
nations.'  " 


CHAPTER    VI. 
THE  SKIPPER'S  STORY. 

"  Well,  what's  the  news  below  ? "  asked  the  doctor  of 
his  housekeeper,  as  she  came  home  from  a  gossiping 
visit  to  the  landing  one  afternoon.  "  What  new  piece 
of  scandal  is  afloat  now  ?  " 

"Nothing,  except  what  concerns  yourself,"  answered 
widow  Matson,  tartly.  "  Mrs.  Nugeon  says  that  you've 
been  to  see  her  neighbor  Wait's  girl  —  she  that's  sick 


244  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

with  the  measles  —  half  a  dozen  times,  and  never  so  much 
as  left  a  spoonful  of  medicine;  and  she  should  like  to 
know  what  a  doctor's  good  for  without  physic.  Besides, 
she  says  Lieutenant  Brown  would  have  got  well  if  you'd 
minded  her,  and  let  him  have  plenty  of  thoroughwort 
tea,  and  put  a  split  fowl  at  the  pit  of  his  stomach." 

"A  split  stick  on  her  own  tongue  would  be  better," 
said  the  doctor,  with  a  wicked  grimace.  "  The  Jezebel ! 
Let  her  look  out  for  herself  the  next  time  she  gets  the 
rheumatism;  I'll  blister  her  from  head  to  heel.  But 
what  else  is  going  ?  " 

"  The  schooner  Polly  Pike  is  at  the  landing." 

"  What,  from  Labrador  ?  The  one  Tom  Osborne  went 
in?" 

"  I  suppose  so ;  I  met  Tom  down  street." 

"  Good  ! "  said  the  doctor,  with  emphasis.  "  Poor 
widow  Osborne's  prayers  are  answered,  and  she  will  see 
her  son  before  she  dies." 

"And  precious  little  good  will  it  do  her,"  said  the 
housekeeper.  "  There's  not  a  more  drunken,  swearing 
rakeshame  in  town  than  Tom  Osborne." 

"  It's  too  true,"  responded  the  doctor ;  "  but  he's  her 
only  son ;  and  you  know,  Mrs.  Matson,  the  heart  of  a 
mother." 

The  widow's  hard  face  softened;  a  tender  shadow 
passed  over  it ;  the  memory  of  some  old  bereavement 


MY   SUMMER    WITH   DR.    SINGLETARY.  245 

melted  her ;  and  as  she  passed  into  the  house  I  saw  her 
put  her  checked  apron  to  her  eyes. 

By  this  time  Skipper  Evans,  who  had  been  slowly 
working  his  way  up  street  for  some  minutes,  had  reached 
the  gate. 

"  Look  here !  "  said  he.  "  Here's  a  letter  that  I've  got 
by  the  Polly  Pike  from  one  of  your  old  patients  that  you 
gave  over  for  a  dead  man  long  ago." 

"  From  the  other  world  of  course,"  said  the  doctor. 

"  No,  not  exactly ;  though  it's  from  Labrador,  which 
is  about  the  last  place  the  Lord  made,  I  reckon." 

"  What,  from  Dick  Wilson  ?  " 

"  Sartain,"  said  the  skipper. 

«  And  how  is  he  ?  " 

"  Alive  and  hearty.  I  tell  you  what,  doctor,  physick 
ing  and  blistering  are  all  well  enough,  may  be ;  but  if 
you  want  to  set  a  fellow  up  when  he's  kinder  run  down, 
there's  nothing  like  a  fishing. trip  to  Labrador,  'specially 
if  he's  been  bothering  himself  with  studying,  and  writing, 
and  such  like.  There's  nothing  like  fish  chowders,  hard 
bunks,  and  sea  fog  to  take  that  nonsense  out  of  him. 
Now,  this  chap,"  (the  skipper  here  gave  me  a  thrust  in 
the  ribs  by  way  of  designation,)  "  if  I  could  have  him 
down  with  me  beyond  sunset  for  two  or  three  months, 
would  come  back  as  hearty  as  a  Bay  o'  Fundy  porpoise." 

Assuring  him  that  I  would  like  to  try  the  experiment, 


246  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

with  him  as  skipper,  I  begged  to  know  the  history  of  the 
case  he  had  spoken  of. 

The  old  fisherman  smiled  complacently,  hitched  up  his 
pantaloons,  took  a  seat  beside  us,  and,  after  extracting  a 
jackknife  from  one  pocket,  and  a  hand  of  tobacco  from 
the  other,  and  deliberately  supplying  himself  with  a  fresh 
quid,  he  mentioned,  apologetically,  that  he  supposed  the 
doctor  had  heard  it  all  before. 

"  Yes,  twenty  times,"  said  the  doctor ;  "  but  never 
mind ;  it's  a  good  story  yet.  Go  ahead,  skipper." 

"  Well,  you  see,"  said  the  skipper,  "  this  young  Wilson 
comes  down  here  from  Hanover  College,  in  the  spring,  as 
lean  as  a  shad  in  dog  days.  He  had  studied  himself  half 
blind,  and  all  his  blood  had  got  into  brains.  So  the  doc 
tor  tried  to  help  him  with  his  poticary  stuff,  and  the 
women  with  their  herbs  ;  but  all  did  no  good.  At  last 
somebody  advised  him  to  try  a  fishing  cruise  down  east ; 
and  so  he  persuaded  me  to  take  him  aboard  my  schooner. 
I  knew  he'd  be  right  in  the  way,  and  poor  company  at 
the  best,  for  all  his  Greek  and  Latin  ;  for,  as  a  general 
thing,  I've  noticed  that  your  college  chaps  swop  away  their 
common  sense  for  their  laming,  and  make  a  mighty  poor 
bargain  of  it.  Well,  he  brought  his  books  with  him,  and 
stuck  to  them  so  close  that  I  was  afraid  we  should  have 
to  slide  him  off  the  plank  before  we  got  half  way  to  Lab 
rador.  So  I  just  told  him  plainly  that  it  wouldn't  do, 


MY    SUMMER    WITH    DR.    SINGLETARY.  247 

and  that  if  he'd  a  mind  to  kill  himself  ashore  I'd  no  ob 
jection,  but  he  shouldn't  do  it  aboard  my  schooner.  *  I'm 
e'en  just  a  mind,'  says  I,  '  to  pitch  your  books  overboard. 
A  fishing  vessel's  no  place  for  'em  ;  they'll  spoil  all  our 
luck.  Don't  go  to  making  a  Jonah  of  yourself  down  here 
in  your  bunk,  but  get  upon  deck,  and  let  your  books  alone, 
and  go  to  watching  the  sea,  and  the  clouds,  and  the  isl 
ands,  and  the  fog  banks,  and  the  fishes,  and  the  birds  ; 
for  Natur,'  says  I,  '  don't  lie  nor  give  hearsays,  but  is 
always  as  true  as  the  gospels.' 

"  But  'twas  no  use  talking.  There  he'd  lay  in  his 
bunk  with  his  books  about  him,  and  I  had  e'en  a'most  to 
drag  him  on  deck  to  snuff  the  sea  air.  Howsomever,  one 
day  —  it  was  the  hottest  of  the  whole  season  —  after  we 
left  the  Magdalenes,  and  were  running  down  the  Gut  of 
Canso,  we  hove  in  sight  of  the  Gannet  Rocks.  Thinks  I 
to  myself,  I'll  show  him  something  now  that  he  can't  find 
in  his  books.  So  I  goes  right  down  after  him  ;  and  when 
we  got  on  deck  he  looked  towards  the  north-east,  and,  if 
ever  I  saw  a  chap  wonder  struck,  he  was.  Right  ahead 
of  us  was  a  bold,  rocky  island,  with  what  looked  like  a 
great  snow  bank  on  its  southern  slope ;  while  the  air  was 
full  overhead,  and  all  about,  of  what  seemed  a  heavy  fall 
of  snow.  The  day  was  blazing  hot,  and  there  wasn't  a 
cloud  to  be  seen. 

"  '  What  in  the  world,  skipper,  does  this  mean  ? '  says 


248  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

he.  *  We're  sailing  right  into  a  snow  storm  in  dog  days 
and  in  a  clear  sky.' 

"  By  this  time  we  had  got  near  enough  to  hear  a  great 
rushing  noise  in  the  air,  every  moment  growing  louder 
and  louder. 

"  '  It's  only  a  storm  of  gannets,'  says  I. 

"  '  Sure  enough  ! '  says  he  ;  *  but  I  wouldn't  have  be 
lieved  it  possible.' 

"  When  we  got  fairly  off  against  the  island  I  fired  a 
gun  at  it ;  and  such  a  fluttering  and  screaming  you  can't 
imagine.  The  great  snow  banks  shook,  trembled,  loos 
ened,  and  became  all  alive,  whirling  away  into  the  air 
like  drifts  in  a  nor'-wester.  Millions  of  birds  went  up, 
wheeling  and  zigzagging  about,  their  white  bodies  and 
black-tipped  wings  crossing  and  recrossing  and  mixing 
together  into  a  thick  grayish-white  haze  above  us. 

"  *  You're  right,  skipper,'  says  Wilson  to  me  ;  '  Nature 
is  better  than  books.' 

"  And  from  that  time  he  was  on  deck  as  much  as  his 
health  would  allow  of,  and  took  a  deal  of  notice  of  every 
thing  new  and  uncommon.  But,  for  all  that,  the  poor  fel 
low  was  so  sick,  and  pale,  and  peaking  that  we  all  thought 
we  should  have  to  heave  him  overboard  some  day  or 
bury  him  in  Labrador  moss." 

"  But  he  didn't  die  after  all,  did  he  ?  "  said  I. 

"  Die  ?     No ! "  cried  the  skipper ;  "  not  he  ! " 


MY    SUMMER    WITH    DR.    SINGLETARY.  249 

"  And  so  your  fishing  voyage  really  cured  him  ?  " 

"  I  can't  say  as  it  did,  exactly,"  returned  the  skipper, 
shifting  his  quid  from  one  cheek  to  the  other,  with  a  sly 
wink  at  the  doctor.  "  The  fact  is,  after  the  doctors  and 
the  old  herb  women  had  given  him  up  at  home,  he  got 
cured  by  a  little  blackeyed  French  girl  on  the  Labrador 
coast." 

"  A  very  agreeable  prescription,  no  doubt,"  quoth  the 
doctor,  turning  to  me.  "  How  do  you  think  it  would  suit 
your  case  ?  " 

"  It  doesn't  become  the  patient  to  choose  his  own  nos 
trums,"  said  I,  laughing.  "  But  I  wonder,  doctor,  that 
you  haven't  long  ago  tested  the  value  of  this  by  an  ex 
periment  upon  yourself." 

"  Physicians  are  proverbially  shy  of  their  own  med 
icines,"  said  he. 

"  "Well,  you  see,"  continued  the  skipper,  "  we  had  a 
rough  run  down  the  Labrador  shore  ;  rain  storms  and  fogs 
so  thick  you  could  cut  'em  up  into  junks  with  your  jack- 
knife.  At  last  we  reached  a  small  fishing  station  away 
down  where  the  sun  doesn't  sleep  in  summer,  but  just 
takes  a  bit  of  a  nap  at  midnight.  Here  Wilson  went 
ashore,  more  dead  than  alive,  and  found  comfortable  lodg 
ings  with  a  little,  dingy  French  oil  merchant,  who  had  a 
snug,  warm  house,  and  a  garden  patch,  where  he  raised 
a  few  potatoes  and  turnips  in  the  short  summers,  and  a 


250  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

tolerable  field  of  grass,  which  kept  his  two  cows  alive 
through  the  winter.  The  country  all  about  was  dismal 
enough ;  as  far  as  you  could  see  there  was  nothing  but 
moss,  and  rocks,  and  bare  hills,  and  ponds  of  shallow 
water,  with  now  and  then  a  patch  of  stunted  firs.  But 
it  doubtless  looked  pleasant  to  our  poor  sick  passenger, 
who  for  some  days  had  been  longing  for  land.  The 
Frenchman  gave  him  a  neat  little  room  looking  out  on 
the  harbor,  all  alive  with  fishermen  and  Indians  hunting 
seals ;  and  to  my  notion  no  place  is  very  dull  where  you 
can  see  the  salt  water  and  the  ships  at  anchor  on  it,  or 
scudding  over  it  with  sails  set  in  a  stiff  breeze,  and  where 
you  can  watch  its  changes  of  lights  and  colors  in  fair  and 
foul  weather,  morning  and  night.  The  family  was  made 
up  of  the  Frenchman,  his  wife,  and  his  daughter  —  a  little 
witch  of  a  girl,  with  bright  black  eyes  lighting  up  her 
brown,  good-natured  face  like  lamps  in  a  binnacle.  They 
all  took  a  mighty  liking  to  young  Wilson,  and  were  ready 
to  do  any  thing  for  him.  He  was  soon  able  to  walk 
about ;  and  we  used  to  see  him  with  the  Frenchman's 
daughter  strolling  along  the  shore  and  among  the  mosses, 
talking  with  her  in  her  own  language.  Many  and  many 
a  time,  as  we  sat  in  our  boats  under  the  rocks,  we  could 
hear  her  merry  laugh  ringing  down  to  us. 

"  We  staid  at  the  station  about  three  weeks  ;  and  when 
we  got  ready  to  sail  I  called  at  the  Frenchman's  to  let 


MY    SUMMER    WITH    DR.    SINGLETARY.  251 

Wilson  know  when  to  corae  aboard.  He  really  seemed 
sorry  to  leave ;  for  the  two  old  people  urged  him  to  re 
main  with  them,  and  poor  little  Lucille  wouldn't  hear  a 
word  of  his  going.  She  said  he  would  be  sick  and  die  on 
board  the  vessel,  but  that  if  he  staid  with  them  he  would 
soon  be  well  and  strong ;  that  they  should  have  plenty 
of  milk  and  eggs  for  him  the  winter ;  and  he  should  ride 
in  the  dog  sledge  with  her,  and  she  Would  take  care  of 
him  as  if  he  was  her  brother.  She  hid  his  cap  and  great 
coat  ;  and  what  with  crying,  and  scolding,  and  coaxing, 
she  fairly  carried  her  point. 

"  '  You  see  Fm  a  prisoner,'  says  he ;  l  they  won't  let 
me  go.' 

"  '  "Well,5  says  I, '  you  don't  seem  to  be  troubled  about 
it.  I  tell  you  what,  young  man,'  says  I,  '  it's  mighty 
pretty  now  to  stroll  round  here,  and  pick  mosses,  and 
hunt  birds'  eggs  with  that  gal ;  but  wait  till  November 
corses,  and  every  thing  freezes  up  stiff  and  dead  except 
white  bears  and  Ingens,  and  there's  no  daylight  left  to 
speak  of,  and  you'll  be  sick  enough  of  your  choice.  You 
won't  live  the  winter  out ;  and  it's  an  awful  place  to  die 
in,  where  the  ground  freezes  so  hard  that  they  can't  bury 
you.' 

"  ;  Lucille  says,'  says  he,  '  that  God  is  as  near  us  in 
the  winter  as  in  the  summer.  The  fact  is,  skipper,  I've  no 
nearer  relative  left  in  the  States  than  a  married  brother, 


252  RECREATIONS   AND    MISCELLANIES. 

who  thinks  more  of  his  family  and  business  than  of  me ; 
and  if  it  is  God's  will  that  I  shall  die,  I  may  as  well 
wait  his  call  here  as  any  where.  I  have  found  kind  friends 
here ;  they  will  do  all  they  can  for  me ;  and  for  the  rest 
I  trust  Providence.* 

"  Lucille  begged  that  I  would  let  him  stay ;  for  she  said 
God  would  hear  her  prayers,  and  he  would  get  well.  I 
told  her  I  wouldn't  urge  him  any  more ;  for  if  I  was  as 
young  as  he  was,  and  had  such  a  pretty  nurse  to  take 
care  of  me,  I  should  be  willing  to  winter  at  the  north 
pole.  "Wilson  gave  me  a  letter  for  his  brother ;  and  we 
shook  hands,  and  I  left  him.  When  we  were  getting 
under  weigh  he  and  Lucille  stood  on  the  landing-place, 
and  I  hailed  him  for  the  last  time,  and  made  signs  of 
sending  the  boat  for  him.  The  little  French  girl  under 
stood  me ;  she  shook  her  head,  and  pointed  to  her  father's 
house;  and  then  they  both  turned  back,  now  and  then 
stopping  to  wave  their  handkerchiefs  to  us.  I  felt  sorry 
to  leave  him  there;  but  for  the  life  of  me  I  couldn't 
blame  him." 

"  I'm  sure  /  don't,"  said  the  doctor. 

"  "Well,  next  year  I  was  at  Nitisquam  Harbor ;  and, 
although  I  was  doing  pretty  well  in  the  way  of  fishing,  I 
couldn't  feel  easy  without  running  away  north  to  'Brador 
to  see  what  had  become  of  my  sick  passenger.  It  was 
rather  early  in  the  season,  and  there  was  ice  still  in  the 


MY    SUMMER   WITH   DK.    SINGLETAEY.  253 

harbor ;  but  we  managed  to  work  in  at  last ;  when  who 
should  I  see  on  shore  but  young  Wilson,  so  stout  and 
hearty  that  I  should  scarcely  have  known  him.  He  took 
me  up  to  his  lodgings  and  told  me  that  he  had  never  spent 
a  happier  winter ;  that  he  was  well  and  strong,  and  could 
fish  and  hunt  like  a  native ;  that  he  was  now  a  partner 
with  the  Frenchman  in  trade,  and  only  waited  the  coming 
of  the  priest  from  the  Magdalenes,  on  his  yearly  visit  to 
the  settlements,  to  marry  his  daughter.  Lucille  was  as 
pretty,  merry,  and  happy  as  ever ;  and  the  old  Frenchman 
and  his  wife  seemed  to  love  Wilson  as  if  he  was  their 
son.  I've  never  seen  him  since ;  but  he  now  writes  me 
that  he  is  married,  and  has  prospered  in  health  and 
property,  and  thinks  Labrador  would  be  the  finest  country 
in  the  world  if  it  only  had  heavy  timber  trees." 

"  One  cannot  but  admire,"  said  the  doctor,  "  that  wise 
and  beneficent  ordination  of  Providence  whereby  the 
spirit  of  man  asserts  its  power  over  circumstances,  mould 
ing  the  rough  forms  of  matter  to  its  fine  ideal,  bringing 
harmony  out  of  discord  —  coloring,  warming,  and  lighting 
up  every  thing  within  the  circle  of  its  horizon.  A  loving 
heart  carries  with  it,  under  every  parallel  of  latitude,  the 
warmth  and  light  of  the  tropics,  It  plants  its  Eden  in  the 
wilderness  and  solitary  place,  and  sows  with  flowers  the 
gray  desolation  of  rocks  and  mosses.  Wherever  love 
goes,  there  springs  the  true  heart's  ease,  rooting  itself  even 


254  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

in  the  polar  ices.  To  the  young  invalid  of  the  skipper's 
story,  the  dreary  waste  of  what  Moore  calls,  as  you 

remember, 

' the  dismal  shore 

Of  cold  and  pitiless  Labrador,' 

looked  beautiful  and  inviting ;  for  he  saw  it  softened  and 
irradiated  in  an  atmosphere  of  love.  Its  bare  hills,  bleak 
rocks,  and  misty  sky  were  but  the  setting  and  background 
of  the  sweetest  picture  in  the  gallery  of  life.  Apart  from 
this,  however,  in  Labrador,  as  in  every  conceivable  lo 
cality,  the  evils  of  soil  and  climate  have  their  compensa 
tions  and  alleviations.  The  long  nights  of  winter  are 
brilliant  with  moonlight,  and  the  changing  colors  of  the 
northern  lights  are  reflected  on  the  snow.  The  summer 
of  Labrador  has  a  beauty  of  its  own,  far  unlike  that  of 
more  genial  climates,  but  which  its  inhabitants  would  not 
forego  for  the  warm  life  and  lavish  luxuriance  of  tropical 
landscapes.  The  dwarf  fir  trees  throw  from  the  ends  of 
their  branches  yellow  tufts  of  stamina,  like  small  lamps 
decorating  green  pyramids  for  the  festival  of  spring  ;  and 
if  green  grass  is  in  a  great  measure  wanting,  its  place  is 
supplied  by  delicate  mosses  of  the  most  brilliant  colors. 
The  truth  is,  every  season  and  climate  has  its  peculiar 
beauties  and  comforts ;  the  footprints  of  the  good  and 
merciful  God  are  found  every  where ;  and  we  should  be 
willing  thankfully  to  own  that  '  he  has  made  all  things 


MY    SUMMER   WITH   DR.    SINGLETART.  255 

beautiful  in  their  time'  if  we  were  not  a  race  of  envious, 
selfish,  ungrateful  grumblers." 

"  Doctor  !  doctor  !  "  cried  a  ragged,  dirty-faced  boy, 
running  breathless  into  the  yard. 

""What's  the  matter,  my  lad  ?"  said  the  doctor. 

"  Mother  wants  you  to  come  right  over  to  our  house. 
Father's  tumbled  off  the  hay  cart ;  and  when  they  got  him 
up  he  didn't  know  nothing ;  but  they  gin  him  some  rum, 
and  that  kinder  brought  him  to." 

"  No  doubt,  no  doubt,"  said  the  doctor,  rising  to  go. 
"Sunitia  similibus  curantur.  Nothing  like  hair  of  the 
dog  that  bites  you." 

"  The  doctor  talks  well,"  said  the  skipper,  who  had 
listened  rather  dubiously  to  his  friend's  commentaries  on 
his  story;  "but  he  carries  too  much  sail  for  me  some 
times,  and  I  can't  exactly  keep  alongside  of  him.  I  told 
Elder  Staples  once  that  I  didn't  see  but  that  the  doctor 
could  beat  him  at  preaching.  'Very  likely,'  says  the 
elder,  says  he;  'for  you  know,  skipper,  I  must  stick  to 
my  text;  but  the  doctor's  Bible  is  all  creation.'" 

"  Yes,"  said  the  elder,  who  had  joined  us  a  few  moments 
before,  "  the  doctor  takes  a  wide  range,  or,  as  the  farmers 
say,  carries  a  wide  swath,  and  has  some  notions  of  things 
which  in  my  view  have  as  little  foundation  in  true  phi 
losophy  as  they  have  warrant  in  Scripture  ;  but,  if  he 
sometimes  speculates  falsely,  he  lives  truly,  which  is  by 


25 G  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

far  the  most  important  matter.  The  mere  dead  letter  of 
a  creed,  however  carefully  preserved  and  reverently 
cherished,  may  be  of  no  more  spiritual  or  moral  efficacy 
than  an  African  fetish  or  an  Indian  medicine  bag.  What 
we  want  is,  orthodoxy  in  practice  —  the  dry  bones  clothed 
with  warm,  generous,  holy  life.  It  is  one  thing  to  hold 
fast  the  robust  faith  of  our  fathers,  —  the  creed  of  the 
freedom-loving  Puritan  and  Huguenot,  —  and  quite  an 
other  to  set  up  the  five  points  of  Calvinism,  like  so  many 
thunder  rods,  over  a  bad  life,  in  the  insane  hope  of 
averting  the  divine  displeasure  from  sin." 


CHARMS   AND   FAIRY   FAITH. 

"Up  the  airy  mountain, 

Down  the  rushy  glen, 
We  darn't  go  a-hunting 

For  fear  of  little  men. 
Wee  folk,  good  folk, 

Trooping  all  together; 
Green  jacket,  red  cap, 

Gray  cock's  feather."  —  Attingham. 

IT  was  from  a  profound  knowledge  of  human  nature 
that  Lord  Bacon,  in  discoursing  upon  truth,  remarked 
that  a  mixture  of  a  lie  doth  ever  add  pleasure.  "  Doth 
any  man  doubt,"  he  asks,  "  that  if  there  were  taken  out  of 
men's  minds  vain  opinions,  flattering  hopes,  false  valuations, 
and  imaginations,  but  it  would  leave  the  minds  of  a  number 
of  men  poor,  shrunken  things,  full  of  melancholy  and  indis 
position,  and  unpleasing  to  themselves  ?  "  This  admitted 
tendency  of  our  nature  —  this  love  of  the  pleasing  intoxi 
cation  of  unveracity,  exaggeration,  and  imagination  — 
may  perhaps  account  for  the  high  relish  which  children 
17  (257) 


258  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

and  nations  yet  in  the  childhood  of  civilization  find  in 
fabulous  legends  and  tales  of  wonder.  The  Arab  at  the 
present  day  listens  with  eager  interest  to  the  same  tales 
of  genii  and  afrits,  sorcerers  and  enchanted  princesses, 
which  delighted  his  ancestors  in  the  times  of  Haroun  al 
Raschid.  The  gentle,  churchgoing  Icelander  of  our 
time  beguiles  the  long  night  of  his  winter  with  the  very 
sagas  and  runes  which  thrilled  with  not  unpleasing  horror 
the  hearts  of  the  old  Norse  sea  robbers.  What  child, 
although  Anglo-Saxon  born,  escapes  a  temporary  sojourn 
in  fairyland  ?  Who  of  us  does  not  remember  the  intense 
satisfaction  of  throwing  aside  primer  and  spelling  book 
for  stolen  ethnographical  studies  of  dwarfs  and  giants? 
Even  in  our  own  country  and  time  old  superstitions  and 
credulities  still  cling  to  life  with  feline  tenacity.  Here 
and  there  —  oftenest  in  our  fixed,  valley-sheltered,  inland 
villages  —  slumberous  Rip  Van  Winkles,  unprogressive 
and  seldom  visited  —  may  be  found  the  same  old  beliefs  in 
omens,  warnings,  witchcraft,  and  supernatural  charms 
which  our  ancestors  brought  with  them  two  centuries 
ago  from  Europe. 

cThe  practice  of  charms,  or  what  is  popularly  called 
"trying  projects,"  is  still,  to  some  extent,  continued  in 
New  England.  The  inimitable  description  which  Burns 
gives  of  similar  practices  in  his  Halloween  may  not  in 
all  respects  apply  to  these  domestic  conjurations ;  but  the 


CHARMS    AND    FAIRY    FAITH.  259 

following  needs  only  the  substitution  of  apple  seeds  for 
nuts :  — 

"  The  auld  gude  wife's  weel-hoordet  nits 

Are  round  an'  round  divided ; 
An'  mony  lads  and  lassies*  fates 

Are  there  that  night  decided. 
Some  kindle  couthie  side  by  side 

An'  burn  thegither  trimly : 
Some  start  awa  wi'  saucy  pride 

And  jump  out  owre  the  chimlie." 

One  of  the  most  common  of  these  "projects"  is  as 
follows :  A  young  woman  goes  down  into  the  cellar,  or 
into  a  dark  room,  with  a  mirror  in  her  hand,  and,  look 
ing  in  it,  sees  the  face  of  her  future  husband  peering 
at  her  through  the  darkness  —  the  mirror  being,  for  the 
time,  as  potent  as  the  famous  Cambuscan  glass  of  which 
Chaucer  discourses.  A  neighbor  of  mine,  in  speaking  of 
this  conjuration,  adduces  a  case  in  point.  One  of  her 
schoolmates  made  the  experiment  and  saw  the  face  of  a 
strange  man  in  the  glass ;  and  many  years  afterwards  she 
saw  the  very  man  pass  her  father's  door.  He  proved  to 
be  an  English  emigrant  just  landed,  and  in  due  time 
became  her  husband.  Burns  alludes  to  something  like 
the  spell  above  described:  — 

"  Wee  Jenny  to  her  grannie  says, 

'  "Will  ye  go  wi'  me,  grannie, 
To  eat  an  apple  at  the  glass 
I  got  from  uncle  Johnnie  ? ' 


260  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

She  fufFt  her  pipe  wi'  sic  a  lunt, 

In  wrath  she  Avas  so  vaporin', 
She  noticed  na  an'  azle  brunt 

Her  bran  new  worset  apron. 

Ye  little  skelpan-limmer's  face, 

How  dare  ye  try  sic  sportin', 
An'  seek  the  foul  thief  ony  place 

For  him  to  try  your  fortune  ? 
Nae  doubt  but  ye  may  get  a  sight  ; 

Great  cause  ye  hae  to  fear  it ; 
For  mony  a  one  has  gotten  a  fright, 

An'  lived  and  died  deleerit." 

It  is  not  to  be  denied,  and  for  truth's  sake  not  to  be 
regretted,  that  this  amusing  juvenile  glammary  has  seen 
its  best  days  in  New  England.  The  schoolmaster  has 
been  abroad  to  some  purpose.  Not  without  results  have 
our  lyceum  lecturers  and  travels  of  Peter  Parley  brought 
every  thing  in  heaven  above  and  in  the  earth  below 
to  the  level  of  childhood's  capacities.  In  our  cities  and 
large  towns  children  nowadays  pass  through  the  opening 
acts  of  life's  marvellous  drama  with  as  little  manifes 
tation  of  wonder  and  surprise  as  the  Indian  does  through 
the  streets  of  a  civilized  city  which  he  has  entered  for  the 
first  time.  Yet  Nature,  sooner  or  later,  vindicates  her 
mysteries ;,  voices  from  the  unseen  penetrate  the  din  of 
civilization.  The  child  philosopher  and  materialist  often 


CHARMS    AND    FAIRY   FAITH.  261 

becomes  the  visionary  of  riper  years,  running  into  illumin- 
ism,  magnetism,  and  transcendentalism,  with  its  inspired 
priests  and  priestesses,  its  revelations  and  oracular  re 
sponses. 

But  in  many  a  green  valley  of  rural  New  England 
there  are  children  yet;  boys  and  girls  are  still  to  be 
found  not  quite  overtaken  by  the  march  of  mind.  There, 
too,  are  huskings,  and  apple  bees,  and  quilting  parties, 
and  huge  old-fashioned  fireplaces  piled  with  crackling 
walnut,  flinging  its  rosy  light  over  happy  countenances 
of  youth  and  scarcely  less  happy  age.  If  it  be  true 
that,  according  to  Cornelius  Agrippa,  "  a  wood  fire  doth 
drive  away  dark  spirits,"  it  is,  nevertheless,  also  true  that 
around  it  the  simple  superstitions  of  our  ancestors  still 
love  to  linger ;  and  there  the  half-sportful,  half-serious 
charms  of  which  I  have  spoken  are  oftenest  resorted  to. 
It  would  be  altogether  out  of  place  to  think  of  them  by 
our  black,  unsightly  stoves,  or  in  the  dull  and  dark  monot 
ony  of  our  furnace-heated  rooms.  Within  the  circle  of 
the  light  of  the  open  fire  safely  might  the  young  conjurers 
question  destiny ;  for  none  but  kindly  and  gentle  messen 
gers  from  wonderland  could  venture  among  them.  And 
who  of  us,  looking  back  to  those  long  autumnal  evenings 
of  childhood  when  the  glow  of  the  kitchen  fire  rested  on 
the  beloved  faces  .of  home,  does  not  feel  that  there  is  truth 
and  beauty  in  what  the  quaint  old  author  just  quoted 


262  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

affirms  ?  "  As  the  spirits  of  darkness  grow  stronger  in  the 
dark,  so  good  spirits,  which  are  angels  of  light,  are  multi 
plied  and  strengthened,  not  only  by  the*  divine  light  of  the 
sun  and  stars,  but  also  by  the  light  of  our  common  wood 
fires."  Even  Lord  Bacon,  in  condemning  the  super 
stitious  beliefs  of  his  day,  admits  that  they  might  serve 
for  winter  talk  around  the  fireside. 

Fairy  faith  is,  we  may  safely  say,  now  dead  every 
where,  —  buried,  indeed,  —  for  the  mad  painter  Blake 
saw  the  funeral  of  the  last  of  the  little  people,  and  ail 
irreverent  English  bishop  has  sung  their  requiem.  It 
never  had  much  hold  upon  the  Yankee  mind,  our  super 
stitions  being  mostly  of  a  sterner  and  less  poetical  kind. 
The  Irish  Presbyterians  who  settled  in  New  Hampshire 
about  the  year  1720  brought  indeed  with  them,  among 
other  strange  matters,  potatoes  and  fairies  ;  but  while  the 
former  took  root  and  flourished  among  us,  the  latter  died 
out,  after  lingering  a  few  years  in  a  very  melancholy  and 
disconsolate  way,  looking  regretfully  back  to  their  green 
turf  dances,  moonlight  revels,  and  cheerful  nestling  around 
the  shealing  fires  of  Ireland.  The  last  that  has  been  heard 
of  them  was  some  forty  or  fifty  years  ago  in  a  tavern 

house  in  S ,  New  Hampshire.     The  landlord  was  a 

spiteful  little  man,  whose  sour,  pinched  look  was  a  stand 
ing  libel  upon  the  state  of  his  larder.  He  made  his  house 
so  uncomfortable  by  his  moroseness  that  travellers  even 


CHAKMS    AND    FAIRY    FAITH.  263 

at  nightfall  pushed  by  his  door  and  drove  to  the  next 
town.  Teamsters  and  drovers,  who  in  those  days  were 
apt  to  be  very  thirsty,  learned,  even  before  temperance 
societies  were  thought  of,  to  practise  total  abstinence  on 
that  road,  and  cracked  their  whips  and  goaded  on  their 
teams  in  full  view  of  a  most  tempting  army  of  bottles 
and  glasses,  from  behind  which  the  surly  little  landlord 
glared  out  upon  them  with  a  look  which  seemed  expres 
sive  of  all  sorts  of  evil  wishes,  broken  legs,  overturned 
carriages,  spavined  horses,  sprained  oxen,  unsavory  poul 
try,  damaged  butter,  and  bad  markets.  And  if,  as  a  mat 
ter  of  necessity,  to  "  keep  the  cold  out  of  his  stomach," 
occasionally  a  wayfarer  stopped  his  team  and  vent.ured  to 
call  for  "  somethin'  wTarmin',"  the  testy  publican  stirred 
up  the  beverage  in  such  a  spiteful  way,  that,  on  receiving 
it  foaming  from  his  hand,  the  poor  customer  was  half 
afraid  to  open  his  mouth,  lest  the  redhot  flip  iron  should 
be  plunged  down  his  gullet. 

As  a  matter  of  course,  poverty  came  upon  the  house 
and  its  tenants  like  an  armed  man.  Loose  clapboards  rat 
tled  in  the  wind ;  rags  fluttered  from  the  broken  windows ; 
within  doors  were  tattered  children  and  scanty  fare.  The 
landlord's  wife  was  a  stout,  buxom  woman,  of  Irish  lin 
eage,  and,  what  with  scolding  her  husband  and  liberally 
patronizing  his  bar  in  his  absence,  managed  to  keep,  as 
she  said,  her  "  own  heart  whole,"  although  the  same  could 


264  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

scarcely  be  said  of  her  children's  trousers  and  her  own 
frock  of  homespun.  She  confidently  predicted  that  "a 
betther  day  was  coming,"  being,  in  fact,  the  only  thing 
hopeful  about  the  premises.  And  it  did  come  sure 
enough.  Not  only  all  the  regular  travellers  on  the  road 
made  a  point  of  stopping  at  the  tavern,  but  guests  from 
all  the  adjacent  towns  filled  its  long-deserted  rooms  — -  the 
secret  of  which  was,  that  it  had  somehow  got  abroad  that 
a  company  of  fairies  had  taken  up  their  abode  in  the 
hostelry  and  daily  held  conversation  with  each  other  in 
the  capacious  parlor.  I  have  heard  those  who  at  the  time 
visited  the  tavern  say  that  it  was  literally  thronged  for 
several  weeks.  Small,  squeaking  voices  spoke  in  a  sort 
of  Yankee-Irish  dialect,  in  the  haunted  room,  to  the  as 
tonishment  and  admiration  of  hundreds.  The  inn,  of 
course,  was  blessed  by  this  fairy  visitation ;  the  clap 
boards  ceased  their  racket,  clear  panes  took  the  place  of 
rags  in  the  sashes,  and  the  little  till  under  the  bar  grew 
daily  heavy  with  coin.  The  magical  influence  extended 
even  farther ;  for  it  was  observable  that  the  landlord  wore 
a  good-natured  face,  and  that  the  landlady's  visits  to  the 
gin  bottle  were  less  and  less  frequent.  But  the  thing 
could  not,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  continue  long.  It 
was  too  late  in  the  day  and  on  the  wrong  side  of  the 
water.  As  the  novelty  wore  off,  people  began  to  doubt 
and  reason  about  it.  Had  the  place  been  traversed  by  a 


CHARMS    AND    FAIRY    FAITH.  265 

ghost  or  disturbed  by  a  witch  they  could  have  acquiesced 
in  it  very  quietly;  but  this  outlandish  belief  in  fairies 
was  altogether  an  overtask  for  Yankee  credulity.  As 
might  have  been  expected,  the  little  strangers,  unable  to 
breathe  in  an  atmosphere  of  doubt  and  suspicion,  soon 
took  their  leave,  shaking  off  the  dust  of  their  elfin  feet  as 
a  testimony  against  an  unbelieving  generation.  It  was, 
indeed,  said  that  certain  rude  fellows  from  the  Bay  State 
pulled  away  a  board  from  the  ceiling  and  disclosed  to 
view  the  fairies  in  the  shape  of  the  landlady's  three  slat 
ternly  daughters.  But  the  reader  who  has  any  degree 
of  that  charity  which  thinks  no  evil  will  rather  credit  the 
statement  of  the  fairies  themselves,  as  reported  by  the 
mistress  of  the  house,  "  that  they  were  tired  of  the  new 
country,  and  had  no  pace  of  their  lives  among  the  Yan 
kees,  and  were  going  back  to  ould  Ireland." 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  Indians  had  some  notion 
of  a  race  of  beings  corresponding  in  many  respects  to  the 
English  fairies.  Schoolcraft  describes  them  as  small 
creatures  in  human  shape,  inhabiting  rocks,  crags,  and 
romantic  dells,  and  delighting  especially  in  points  of  land 
jutting  into  lakes  and  rivers  and  which  were  covered  with 
pine  trees.  They  were  called  Puckweedjinees  —  little 
vanishers. 

In  a  poetical  point  of  view  it  is  to  be  regretted  that 
our  ancestors  did  not  think  it  worth  their  while  to  hand 


266  KECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

down  to  us  more  of  the  simple  and  beautiful  traditions 
and  beliefs  of  the  "heathen  round  about"  them.  Some 
hints  of  them  we  glean  from  the  writings  of  the  mission 
ary  May  hew  and  the  curious  little  book  of  Roger  Wil 
liams.  Especially  would  one  like  to  know  more  of  that 
domestic  demon,  Wetuomanit,  who  presided  over  house 
hold  affairs,  assisted  the  young  squaw  in  her  first  essay 
at  wigwam  keeping,  gave  timely  note  of  danger,  and 
kept  evil  spirits  at  a  distance  —  a  kind  of  new  world 
brownie,  gentle  and  useful. 

Very  suggestive,  too,  is  the  story  of  Pumoolah  —  a 
mighty  spirit,  whose  home  is  on  the  great  Katahdin 
Mountain,  sitting  there  with  his  earthly  bride,  (a  beautiful 
daughter  of  the  Penobscots  transformed  into  an  immortal 
by  her  love,)  in  serenest  sunshine,  above  the  storm  which 
crouches  and  growls  at  his  feet.  None  but  the  perfectly 
pure  and  good  can  reach  his  abode.  Many  have  from 
time  to  time  attempted  it  in  vain ;  some,  after  almost 
reaching  the  summit,  have  been  driven  back  by  thunder 
bolts  or  sleety  whirlwinds. 

Not  far  from  my  place  of  residence  are  the  ruins  of  a 
mill  in  a  narrow  ravine  fringed  with  trees.  Some  forty 
years  ago  the  mill  was  supposed  to  be  haunted ;  and  horse 
shoes,  in  consequence,  were  nailed  over  its  doors.  One 
worthy  man,  whose  business  lay  beyond  the  mill,  was 
afraid  to  pass  it  alone ;  and  his  wife,  who  was  less  fearful 


CHARMS    AND    FAIRY    FAITH.  267 

of  supernatural  annoyance,  used  to  accompany  him.  The 
little  old  white-coated  miller,  who  there  ground  corn  and 
wheat  for  his  neighbors,  whenever  he  made  a  particularly 
early  visit  to  his  mill  used  to  hear  it  in  full  operation  — 
the  water  wheel  dashing  bravely,  and  the  old  rickety 
building  clattering  to  the  jar  of  the  stones.  Yet  the 
moment  his  hand  touched  the  latch  or  his  foot  the  thresh 
old  all  was  hushed  save  the  melancholy  drip  of  water 
from  the  dam  or  the  low  gurgle  of  the  small  stream  eddy 
ing  amidst  willow  roots  and  mossy  stones  in  the  ravine 
below. 

This  haunted  mill  has  always  reminded  me  of  that 
most  beautiful  of  Scottish  ballads,  the  Song  of  the  Elfin 
Miller,  in  which  fairies  are  represented  as  grinding  the 
poor  man's  grist  without  toll :  — 

"Full  merrily  rings  the  millstone  round; 

Full  merrily  rings  the  wheel ; 
Full  merrily  gushes  out  the  grist : 

Come,  taste  my  fragrant  meal. 
The  miller  he's  a  warldly  man, 

And  maun  hae  double  fee ; 
So  draw  the  sluice  in  the  churl's  dam 

And  let  the  stream  gae  free  !  " 

Brainerd,  who  truly  deserves  the  name  of  an  American 
poet,  has  left  behind  him  a  ballad  on  the  Indian  legend 
of  the  black  fox  which  haunted  Salmon  River,  a  tributary 


268  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

of  the  Connecticut.  Its  wild  and  picturesque  beauty 
causes  us  to  regret  that  more  of  the  still  lingering  tra 
ditions  of  the  red  men  have  not  been  made  the  themes 
of  his  verse:  — 

THE  BLACK  FOX. 

How  cold,  how  beautiful,  how  bright 
The  cloudless  heaven  above  us  shines  ! 

But  'tis  a  howling  winter's  night; 
'Twould  freeze  the  very  forest  pines. 

The  winds  are  up  while  mortals  sleep  ; 

The  stars  look  forth  while  eyes  are  shut ; 
The  bolted  snow  lies  drifted  deep 

Around  our  poor  and  lonely  hut. 

With  silent  step  and  listening  ear, 

With  bow  and  arrow,  dog  and  gun, 
.    We'll  mark  his  track  —  his  prowl  we  hear  : 
Now  is  our  time  !    Come  on  !  come  on  ! 

O'er  many  a  fence,  through  many  a  wood, 
Following  the  dog's  bewildered  scent, 

In  anxious  haste  and  earnest  mood, 
The  white  man  and  the  Indian  went. 

The  gun  is  cocked  ;  the  bow  is  bent ; 

The  dog  stands  with  uplifted  paw; 
And  ball  and  arrow  both  are  sent, 

Aimed  at  the  prowler's  very  jaw. 


CHARMS    AND    FAIRY   FAITH.  269 

The  ball  to  kill  that  fox  is  run 

Not  in  a  mould  by  mortals  made  ; 
The  arrow  which  that  fox  should  shun 

Was  never  shaped,  from  earthly  reed. 

The  Indian  Druids  of  the  wood 

Know  where  the  fatal  arrows  grow ; 
They  spring  not  by  the  summer  flood ; 

They  pierce  not  through  the  winter's  snow. 

Why  cowers  the  dog,  whose  snuffing  nose 

Was  never  once  deceived  till  now  ? 
And  why  amid!st  the  chilling  snows 

Does  either  hunter  wipe  his  brow  ? 

For  once  they  see  his  fearful  den  ; 

'Tis  a  dark  cloud  that  slowly  moves 
By  night  around  the  homes  of  men, 

By  day  along  the  stream  it  loves. 

Again  the  dog  is  on  the  track, 

The  hunters  chase  o'er  dale  and  hill ; 
They  may  not,  though  they  would,  look  back  ; 

They  must  go  forward,  forward  still. 

Onward  they  go,  and  never  turn, 

Amidst  a  night  which  knows  no  day ; 
For  nevermore  shall  morning  sun 

Light  them  upon  their  endless  way. 

The  hut  is  desolate  ;  and  there 
The  famished  dog  alone  returns ; 


270  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

On  the  cold  steps  he  makes  his  lair ; 
By  the  shut  door  he  lays  his  bones. 

Now  the  tired  sportsman  leans  his  gun 
Against  the  ruins  on  its  site, 

And  ponders  on  the  hunting  done 
By  the  lost  wanderers  of  the  night. 

And  there  the  little  country  girls 

Will  stop  to  whisper,  listen,  and  look, 

And  tell,  while  dressing  their  sunny  curls, 
Of  the  Black  Fox  of  Salmon  Brook. 


The  same  writer  has  happily  versified  a  pleasant  super 
stition  of  the  valley  of  the  Connecticut.  It  is  supposed 
that  shad  are  led  from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  to  the  Con 
necticut  by  a  kind  of  Yankee  bogle  in  the  shape  of  a  bird. 

THE   SHAD   SPIRIT. 

Now  drop  the  bolt,  and  securely  nail 

The  horseshoe  over  the  door  ; 
'Tis  a  wise  precaution ;  and,  if  it  should  fail, 

It  never  failed  before. 

Know  ye  the  shepherd  that  gathers  his  flock 
Where  the  gales  of  the  equinox  blow 

From  each  unknown  reef  and  sunken  rock 
In  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  — 


CHARMS    AND    FAIRY    FAITH.  271 

While  the  monsoons  growl,  and  the  trade  winds  bark, 

And  the  watchdogs  of  the  surge 
Pursue  through  the  wild  waves  the  ravenous  shark 

That  prowls  around  their  charge  ? 

To  fair  Connecticut's  northernmost  source, 

O'er  sand*bars,  rapids,  and  falls, 
The  Shad  Spirit  holds  his  onward  course 

With  the  flocks  which  his  whistle  calls. 

0,  how  shall  he  know  where  he  went  before  ? 

Will  he  wander  around  forever  ? 
The  last  year's  shad  heads  shall  shine  on  the  shore, 

To  light  him  up  the  river. 

And  well  can  he  tell  the  very  time 

To  undertake  his  task : 
When  the  pork  barrel's  low  he  sits  on  the  chine 

And  drums  on  the  empty  cask. 

The  wind  is  light,  and  the  wave  is  white   % 

With  the  fleece  of  the  flock  that's  near ; 
Like  the  breath  of  the  breeze  he  comes  over  the  seas 

And  faithfully  leads  them  here. 

And  now  he's  passed  the  bolted  door 

Where  the  rusted  horseshoe  clings  ; 
So  carry  the  nets  to  the  nearest  shore, 

And  take  what  the  Shad  Spirit  brings. 


272  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

The  comparatively  innocent  nature  and  simple  poetic 
beauty  of  this  class  of  superstitions  have  doubtless  often 
induced  the  moralist  to  hesitate  in  exposing  their  ab 
surdity,  and,  like  Burns  in  view  of  his  national  thistle,  to 

"  Turn  the  weeding  hook  aside «, 
And  spare  the  symbol  dear." 

But  the  age  has  fairly  outgrown  them,  and  they  are 
falling  away  by  a  natural  process  of  exfoliation.  The 
wonderland  of  childhood  must  henceforth  be  sought  with 
in  the  domains  of  truth.  The  strange  facts  of  natural 
history,  and  the  sweet  mysteries  of  flowers  and  forests, 
and  hills  and  waters,  will  profitably  take  the  place  of  the 
fairy  lore  of  the  past,  and  poetry  and  romance  still  hold 
their  accustomed  seats  in  the  circle  of  home,  without 
bringing  with  them  the  evil  spirits  of  credulity  and  un 
truth.  Truth  should  be  the  first  lesson  of  the  child  and 
the  last  aspiration  of  manhood ;  for  it  has  been  well  said 
that  the  inquiry  of  truth,  which  is  the  lovemaking  of  it, 
the  knowledge  of  truth,  which  is  the  presence  of  it,  and 
the  belief  of  truth,  which  is  the  enjoying  of  it,  is  the  sov 
ereign  good  of  human  nature. 


MAGICIANS  AND   WITCH   FOLK. 

"FASCINATION,"  saith  Henry  Cornelius  Agrippa,  in 
the  fiftieth  chapter  of  his  first  book  on  Occult  Philoso 
phy,  "  is  a  binding  which  comes  of  the  spirit  of  the  witch 
through  the  eyes  of  him  that  is  bewitched,  entering  to  his 
heart;  for  the  eye  being  opened  and  intent  upon  any 
one  with  a  strong  imagination  doth  dart  its  beams,  which 
are  the  vehiculum  of  the  spirit,  into  the  eyes  of  him  that 
is  opposite  to  her,  which  tender  spirit  strikes  his  eyes, 
stirs  up  and  wounds  his  heart,  and  infects  his  spirit. 
Whence  Apuleius  saith, '  Thy  eyes,  sliding  down  through 
my  eyes  into  my  inmost  heart,  stirreth  up  a  most  vehe 
ment  burning.'  And  when  eyes  are  reciprocally  intent 
upon  each  other,  and  when  rays  are  joined  to  rays,  and 
lights  to  lights,  then  the  spirit  of  the  one  is  joined  to  that 
of  the  other ;  so  are  strong  ligations  made  and  vehement 
loves  inflamed."  Taking  this  definition  of  witchcraft,  we 
sadly  fear  it  is  still  practised  to  a  very  great  extent  among 
us.  The  best  we  can  say  of  it  is,  that  the  business  seems 
latterly  to  have  fallen  into  younger  hands  ;  its  victims  do 
18  (273) 


274  KECREATIONS   AND   MISCELLANIES. 

not  appear  to  regard  themselves  as  especial  objects  of 
compassion ;  and  neither  church  nor  state  seems  inclined 
to  interfere  with  it. 

As  might  be  expected  in  a  shrewd  community  like  ours, 
attempts  are  not  unfrequently  made  to  speculate  in  the 
supernatural  —  to  "make  gain  of  soothsaying."  In  the 
autumn  of  last  year  a  "wise  woman"  dreamed,  or  som- 
nambulized,  that  a  large  sum  of  money,  in  gold  and  silver 
coin,  lay  buried  in  the  centre  of  the  great  swamp  in  Poplin, 
New  Hampshire;  whereupon  an  immediate  search  was 
made  for  the  precious  metal.  Under  the  bleak  sky 'of 
November,  in  biting  frost  and  sleet  rain,  some  twenty  or 
more  grown  men,  graduates  of  our  common  schools,  and 
liable,  every  mother's  son  of  them,  to  be  made  deacons, 
squires,  and  general  court  jnembers,  and  such  other  drill 
officers  as  may  be  requisite  in  the  march  of  mind,  might 
be  seen  delving  in  grim  earnest,  breaking  the  frozen  earth, 
uprooting  swamp  maples  and  hemlocks,  and  waking,  with 
sledge  and  crowbar,  unwonted  echoes  in  a  solitude  which 
had  heretofore  only  answered  to  the  woodman's  axe  or  the 
scream  of  the  wild  fowl.  The  snows  of  December  put  an 
end  to  their  labors ;  but  the  yawning  excavation  still 
remains,  a  silent  but  somewhat  expressive  commentary 
upon  the  age  of  progress. 

Still  later,  in  one  of  our  Atlantic  cities,  an  attempt  was 
made,  partially,  at  least,  successful,  to  form  a  company 


MAGICIANS    AND    WITCH    FOLK.  275 

for  the  purpose  of  digging  for  money  in  one  of  the  deso 
late  sandkeys  of  the  West  Indies.  It  appears  that  some 
mesmerized  "  subject,"  in  the  course  of  one  of  those  som- 
nambulic  voyages  of  discovery  in  which  the  traveller, 
like  Satan  in  chaos,  — 

"  O'er  bog,  o'er  steep,  through  straight,  rough,  dense,  or  rare, 
With  head,  hands,  wings,  or  feet,  pursues  his  way, 
And  swims,  or  sinks,  or  wades,  or  creeps,  or  flies,"  — 

while  peering  curiously  into  the  earth's  mysteries,  chanced 
to  have  his  eyes  gladdened  by  the  sight  of  a  huge  chest 
packed  with  Spanish  coins,  the  spoil,  doubtless,  of  some 
rich-freighted  argosy,  or  Carthagena  galleon,  in  the  rare 
days  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  Christian  buccaneers. 

During  the  last  quarter  of  a  century,  a  colored  woman 
in  one  of  the  villages  on  the  southern  border  of  New 
Hampshire  has  been  consulted  by  hundreds  of  anxious 
inquirers  into  the  future.  Long  experience  in  her  pro 
fession  has  given  her  something  of  that  ready  estimate  of 
character,  that  quick  and  keen  appreciation  of  the  capacity, 
habits,  and  wishes  of  her  visitors,  which  so  remarkably 
distinguished  the  late  famous  Madame  Le  Normand,  of 
Paris  ;  and  if  that  old  squalid  sorceress,  in  her  cramped 
Parisian  attic,  redolent  of  garlic  and  bestrewn  with  the 
greasy  implements  of  sorry  housewifery,  was,  as  has  been 
affirmed,  consulted  by  such  personages  as  the  fair  Jose- 


276  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

phine  Beauharnois,  and  the  "  man  of  destiny,"  Napoleon 
himself,  is  it  strange  that  the  desire  to  lift  the  veil  of  the 
great  mystery  before  us  should  overcome  in  some  degree 
our  peculiar  and  most  republican  prejudice  against  color, 
and  reconcile  us  to  the  disagreeable  necessity  of  looking 
at  futurity  through  a  black  medium  ? 

Some  forty  years  ago,  on  the  banks  of  the  pleasant  little 
creek  separating  Berwick,  in  Maine,  from  Somersworth,  in 
New  Hampshire,  within  sight  of  my  mother's  home,  dwelt 
a  plain,  sedate  member  of  the  society  of  Friends,  named 
Bantum.  He  passed  throughout  a  circle  of  several  miles 
as  a  conjurer  and  skilful  adept  in  the  art  of  magic.  To 
him  resorted  farmers  who  had  lost  their  cattle,  matrons 
whose  household  gear,  silver  spoons,  and  table  linen  had 
been  stolen,  or  young  maidens  whose  lovers  were  absent ; 
and  the  quiet,  meek-spirited  old  man  received  them  all 
kindly,  put  on  his  huge  iron-rimmed  spectacles,  opened 
his  "  conjuring  book,"  which  my  mother  describes  as  a 
large  clasped  volume  in  strange  language  and  black-letter 
type,  and  after  due  reflection  and  consideration  gave  the 
required  answers  without  money  and  without  price. 
The  curious  old  volume  is  still  in  the  possession  of  the 
conjurer's  family.  Apparently  inconsistent  as  was  this 
practice  of  the  black  art  with  the  simplicity  and  truthful 
ness  of  his  religious  profession,  I  have  not  been  able  to 
learn  that  he  was  ever  subjected  to  censure  on  account  of 


MAGICIANS    AND    WITCH    FOLK.  277 

it.  It  may  be  that  our  modern  conjurer  defended  him 
self  on  grounds  similar  to  those  assumed  by  the  celebrated 
knight  of  Nettesheim,  in  the  preface  to  his  first  Book  of 
Magic :  "  Some,"  says  he,  "  may  crie  oute  that  I  teach 
forbidden  arts,  sow  the  seed  of  heresies,  offend  pious  ears, 
and  scandalize  excellent  wits  ;  that  I  am  a  sorcerer,  super 
stitious  and  devilish,  who  indeed  am  a  magician.  To 
whom  I  answer,  that  a  magician  doth  not  among  learned 
men  signifie  a  sorcerer  or  one  that  is  superstitious  or 
devilish,  but  a  wise  man,  a  priest,  a  prophet,  and  that 
the  sibyls  prophesied  most  clearly  of  Christ;  that  ma 
gicians,  as  wise  men,  by  the  wonderful  secrets  of  the 
world,  knew  Christ  to  be  born,  and  came  to  worship  him, 
first  of  all ;  and  that  the  name  of  magicke  is  received  by 
philosophers,  commended  by  divines,  and  not  unacceptable 
to  the  gospel." 

The  study  of  astrology  and  occult  philosophy,  to 
which  many  of  the  finest  minds  of  the  middle  ages  de 
voted  themselves  without  molestation  from  the  church, 
was  never  practised  with  impunity  after  the  reformation. 
The  Puritans  and  Presbyterians,  taking  the  Bible  for 
their  rule,  "  suffered  not  a  witch  to  live ; "  and,  not  con 
tent  with  burning  the  books  of  those  who  "  used  curious 
arts "  after  the  manner  of  the  Ephesians,  they  sacrificed 
the  students  themselves  on  the  same  pile.  Hence  we 
hear  little  of  learned  and  scientific  wizards  in  New 


278  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

England.  One  remarkable  character  of  this  kind  seems, 
however,  to  have  escaped  the  vigilance  of  our  modern 
doctors  of  the  Mosaic  law.  Dr.  Robert  Child  came  to 
this  country  about  the  year  1644  and  took  up  his  resi 
dence  in  the  Massachusetts  colony.  He  was  a  man  of 
wealth,  and  owned  plantations  at  Nashaway,  now  Lan 
caster,  and  at  Saco,  in  Maine.  He  was  skilful  in  min 
eralogy  and  metallurgy,  and  seems  to  have  spent  a  good 
deal  of  money  in  searching  for  mines.  He  is  well  known 
as  the  author  of  the  first  decided  movement  for  liberty  of 
conscience  in  Massachusetts,  his  name  standing  at  the 
head  of  the  famous  petition  of  1646  for  a  modification  of 
the  laws  in  respect  to  religious  worship,  and  complaining 
in  strong  terms  of  the  disfranchisement  of  persons  not 
members  of  the  church.  A  tremendous  excitement  was 
produced  by  this  remonstrance;  clergy  and  magistrates 
joined  in  denouncing  it;  Dr.  Child  and  his  associates 
were  arrested,  tried  for  contempt  of  government,  and 
heavily  fined.  The  court,  in  passing  sentence,  assured 
the  doctor  that  his  crime  was  only  equalled  by  that  of 
Korah  and  his  troop,  who  rebelled  against  Moses  and 
Aaron.  He  resolved  to  appeal  to  the  Parliament  of  Eng 
land,  and  made  arrangements  for  his  departure,  but  was 
arrested,  and  ordered  to  be  kept  a  prisoner  in  his  own 
house  until  the  vessel  in  which  he  was  to  sail  had  left 
Boston.  He  was  afterwards  imprisoned  for  a  considerable 


MAGICIANS   AND    WITCH   FOLK.  279 

length  of  time,  and  on  his  release  found  means  to  return 
to  England.  The  doctor's  trunks  were  searched  by  the 
Puritan  authorities  while  he  was  in  prison ;  but  it  does 
not  appear  that  they  detected  the  occult  studies  to  which 
he.was  addicted,  to  which  lucky  circumstance  it  is  doubt 
less  owing  that  the  first  champion  of  religious  liberty  in 
the  new  world  was  not  hung  for  a  wizard. 

Dr.  C.  was  a  graduate  of  the  renowned  University  of 
Padua,  and  had  travelled  extensively  in  the  old  world, 
Probably,  like  Michael  Scott,  he  had 

"  Learned  the  art  of  glatnmarye 
In  Padua,  beyond  the  sea ;  " 

for  I  find  in  the  dedication  of  an  English  translation  of  a 
continental  work  on  astrology  and  magic,  printed  in  1651 
"  at  the  sign  of  the  Three  Bibles,"  that  his  "  sublime  her- 
meticall  and  theomagicall  lore"  is  compared  to  that  of 
Hermes  and  Agrippa.  He  is  complimented  as  a  master 
of  the  mysteries  of  Rome  and  Germany,  and  as  one  who 
had  pursued  his  investigations  among  the  philosophers  of 
the  old  world  and  the  Indians  of  the  new,  "  leaving  no 
stone  unturned  the  turning  whereof  might  conduce  to  the 
discovery  of  what  is  occult." 

There  was  still  another  member  of  the  Friends'  so 
ciety  in  Vermont,  of  the  name  of  Austin,  who,  in  answer, 
as  he  supposed,  to  prayer  and  a  long-cherished  desire  to 


280  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

benefit  his  afflicted  fellow-creatures,  received,  as  he  be* 
lieved,  a  special  gift  of  healing.  For  several  years  appli 
cants  from  nearly  all  parts  of  New  England  visited  him 
with  the  story  of  their  sufferings  and  praying  for  a  re 
lief,  which,  it  is  averred,  was  in  many  instances  really 
obtained.  Letters  from  the  sick  who  were  unable  to 
visit  him,  describing  their  diseases,  were  sent  him ;  and 
many  are  yet  living  who  believe  that  they  were  restored 
miraculously  at  the  precise  period  of  time  when  Austin 
was  engaged  in  reading  their  letters.  One  of  my  uncles 
was  commissioned  to  convey  to  him  a  large  number  of 
letters  from  sick  persons  in  his  neighborhood.  He  found 
the  old  man  sitting  in  his  plain  parlor  in  the  simplest 
garb  of  his  sect  —  grave,  thoughtful,  venerable  —  a  drab- 
coated  Prince  Hohenlohe.  He  received  the  letters  in 
silence,  read  them  slowly,  casting  them  one  after  another 
upon  a  large  pile  of  similar  epistles  in  a  corner  of  the 
apartment. 

Half  a  century  ago  nearly  every  neighborhood  in  New 
England  was  favored  with  one  or  more  reputed  dealers 
in  magic.  Twenty  years  later  there  were  two  poor  old 
sisters  who  used  to  frighten  school  urchins  and  "  children 
of  a  larger  growth  "  as  they  rode  down  from  New  Hamp 
shire  on  their  gaunt  skeleton  horses,  strung  over  with 
baskets  for  the  Newburyport  market.  They  were  aware 
of  the  popular  notion  concerning  them,  and  not  unfre- 


MAGICIANS    AND    WITCH    FOLK.  281 

quently  took  advantage  of  it  to  levy  a  sort  of  black  mail 
upon  their  credulous  neighbors.  An  attendant  at  the 
funeral  of  one  of  these  sisters,  who  when  living  was  about 
as  unsubstantial  as  Ossian's  ghost,  through  which  the  stars 
were  visible,  told  me  that  her  coffin  was  so  heavy  that 
four  stout  men  could  barely  lift  it. 

One  of  my  earliest  recollections  is  that  of  an  old  woman, 
residing  about  two  miles  from  the  place  of  my  nativity, 
who  for  many  years  had  borne  the  unenviable  reputation 
of  a  witch.  She  certainly  had  the  look  of  one  —  a  com 
bination  of  form,  voice,  and  features  which  would  have 
made  the  fortune  of  an  English  witch  finder  in  the  days 
of  Matthew  Paris  or  the  Sir  John  Podgers  of  Dickens, 
and  insured  her  speedy  conviction  in  King  James's  High 
Court  of  Justiciary.  She  was  accused  of  divers  ill  doings, 
such  as  preventing  the  cream  in  her  neighbor's  churn 
from  becoming  butter,  and  snuffing  out  candles  at  husk- 
ings  and  quilting  parties. 

"  She  roamed  the  country  far  and  near, 

Bewitched  the  children  of  the  peasants, 
Dried  up  the  cows,  and  lamed  the  deer, 
And  sucked  the  eggs,  and  killed  the  pheasants." 

The  poor  old  woman  was  at  length  so  sadly  annoyed  by 
her  unfortunate  reputation  that  she  took  the  trouble  to 
go  before  a  justice  of  the  peace,  and  made  solemn  oath 
that  she  was  a  Christian  woman,  and  no  witch. 


282  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

Not  many  years  since  a  sad-visaged,  middle-aged  man 
might  be  seen  in  the  streets  of  one  of  our  seaboard 
towns  at  times  suddenly  arrested  in  the  midst  of  a  brisk 
walk  and  fixed  motionless  for  some  minutes  in  the  busy 
thoroughfare.  No  effort  could  induce  him  to  stir  until, 
in  his  opinion,  the  spell  was  removed  and  his  invisible 
tormentor  suffered  him  to  proceed.  Pie  explained  his 
singular  detention  as  the  act  of  a  whole  family  of  witches 
whom  he  had  unfortunately  offended  during  a  visit  down 
east.  It  was  rumored  that  the  offence  consisted  in  break 
ing  off  a  matrimonial  engagement  with  the  youngest  mem 
ber  of  the  family  —  a  sorceress,  perhaps,  in  more  than 
one  sense  of  the  word,  like  that  "winsome  wench  and 
walie"  in  Tarn  O'Shanter's  witch  dance  at  Kirk  Alloway. 
His  only  hope  was  that  he  should  outlive  his  persecutors  ; 
and  it  is  said  that  at  the  very  hour  in  which  the  event 
took  place  he  exultingly  assured  his  friends  that  the  spell 
was  forever  broken,  and  that  the  last  of  the  family  of 
his,  tormentors  was  no  more. 

When  a  boy,  I  occasionally  met  at  the  house  of  a  rela 
tive  in  an  adjoining  town  a  stout,  red-nosed  old  farmer  of 
the  neighborhood.  A  fine  tableau  he  made  of  a  winter's 
evening,  in  the  red  light  of  a  birch  log  fire,  as  he  sat  for 
hours  watching  its  progress,  with  sleepy,  half-shut  eyes, 
changing  his  position  only  to  reach  the  cider  mug  on  the 
shelf  near  him.  Although  he  seldom  opened  his  lips  save 


MAGICIANS    AND    WITCH    FOLK.  283 

to  assent  to  some  remark  of  his  host  or  to  answer  a  direct 
question,  yet  at  times,  when  the  cider  mug  got  the  better 
of  his  taciturnity,  he  would  amuse  us  with  interesting 
details  of  his  early  experiences  in  "  the  Ohio  country." 

There  was,  however,  one  chapter  in  these  experiences 
which  he  usually  held  in  reserve,  and  with  which  "  the 
stranger  intermeddled  not."  He  was  not  willing  to  run 
the  risk  of  hearing  that  which  to  him  was  a  frightful 
reality  turned  into  ridicule  by  scoffers  and  unbelievers. 
The  substance  of  it,  as  I  received  it  from  one  of  his 
neighbors,  forms  as  clever  a  tale  of  witchcraft  as  modern 
times  have  produced. 

It  seems  that  when  quite  a  young  man  he  left,  the 
homestead,  and,  strolling  westward,  worked  his  way  from 
place  to  place  until  he  found  himself  in  one  of  the  old 
French  settlements  on  the  Ohio  River.  Here  he  procured 
employment  on  the  farm  of  a  widow  ;  and  being  a  smart, 
active  fellow,  and  proving  highly  serviceable  in  his  de 
partment,  he  rapidly  gained  favor  in  the  eyes  of  his 
employer.  Ere  long,  contrary  to  the  advice  of  the 
neighbors,  and  in  spite  of  somewhat  discouraging  hints 
touching  certain  matrimonial  infelicities  experienced  by 
the  late  husband,  he  resolutely  stepped  into  the  dead 
man's  shoes :  the  mistress  became  the  wife,  and  the  ser 
vant  was  legally  promoted  to  the  head  of  the  household. 

For  a  time  matters  went  on  cosily  and  comfortably 


284  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

enough.  He  was  now  lord  of  the  soil ;  and,  as  he  laid 
in  his  crops  of  corn  and  potatoes,  salted  down  his  pork, 
and  piled  up  his  wood  for  winter's  use,  he  naturally 
enough  congratulated  himself  upon  his  good  fortune  and 
laughed  at  the  sinister  forebodings  of  his  neighbors.  But 
with  the  long  winter  months  came  a  change  over  his 
"  love's  young  dream."  An  evil  and  mysterious  influence 
seemed  to  be  at  work  in  his  affairs.  Whatever  he  did 
after  consulting  his  wife  or  at  her  suggestion  resulted 
favorably  enough ;  but  all  his  own  schemes  and  projects 
were  unaccountably  marred  and  defeated.  If  he  bought  a 
horse,  it  was  sure  to  prove  spavined  or  wind-broken.  His 
cows  either  refused  to  give  down  their  milk,  or,  giving  it, 
perversely  kicked  it  over.  A  fine  sow  which  he  had  bar 
gained  for  repaid  his  partiality  by  devouring,  like  Saturn, 
her  own  children.  By  degrees  a  dark  thought  forced  its 
way  into  his  mind.  Comparing  his  repeated  mischances 
with  the  ante-nuptial  warnings  of  his  neighbors,  he  at  last 
came  to  the  melancholy  conclusion  that  his  wife  was  a 
witch.  The  victim  in  Mother  well's  ballad  of  the  Demon 
Lady,  or  the  poor  fellow  in  the  Arabian  tale  who  discov 
ered  that  he  had  married  a  ghoul  in  the  guise  of  a  young 
and  blooming  princess,  was  scarcely  in  a  more  sorrowful 
predicament.  He  grew  nervous  and  fretful.  Old  dismal 
nursery  stories  and  all  the  witch  lore  of  boyhood  came 
back  to  his  memory;  and  he  crept  to  his  bed  like  a 


MAGICIANS    AND    WITCH    FOLK.  285 

criminal  to  the  gallows,  half  afraid  to  fall  asleep  lest  his 
mysterious  companion  should  take  a  fancy  to  transform 
him  into  a  horse,  get  him  shod  at  the  smithy,  and  ride  him 
to  a  witch  meeting.  And,  as  if  to  make  the  matter  worse, 
his  wife's  affection  seemed  to  increase  just  in  proportion 
as  his  troubles  thickened  upon  him.  She  aggravated  him. 
with  all  manner  of  caresses  and  endearments.  This  was 
the  drop  too  much.  The  poor  husband  recoiled  from  her 
as  from  a  waking  nightmare.  His  thoughts  turned  to 
New  England ;  he  longed  to  see  once  more  the  old  home 
stead,  with  its  tall  wellsweep  and  butternut  trees  by  the 
roadside ;  and  he  sighed  amidst  the  rich  bottom  lands 
of  his  new  home  for  his  father's  rocky  pasture,  with  its 
crop  of  stinted  mulleins.  So  one  cold  November  day, 
finding  himself  out  of  sight  and  hearing  of  his  wife,  he 
summoned  courage  to  attempt  an  escape,  and,  resolutely 
turning  his  back  on  the  west,  plunged  into  the  wilderness 
towards  the  sunrise.  After  a  long  and  hard  journey  he 
reached  his  birthplace  and  was  kindly  welcomed  by  his 
old  friends.  Keeping  a  close  mouth  with  respect  to  his 
unlucky  adventure  in  Ohio,  he  soon  after  married  one  of 
his  schoolmates,  and,  by  dint  of  persevering  industry 
and  economy,  in  a  few  years  found  himself  in  possession 
of  a  comfortable  home. 

But  his  evil  star  still  lingered  above  the  horizon.     One 
summer  evening,  on  returning  from  the  hay  field,  who 


286  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

should  meet  him  but  his  witch  wife  from  Ohio!  She 
came  riding  up  the  street  on  her  old  white  horse,  with  a 
pillion  behind  the  saddle.  Accosting  him  in  a  kindly 
tone,  yet  not  without  something  of  gentle  reproach  for 
his  unhandsome  desertion  of  her,  she  informed  him  that 
•  she  had  come  all  the  way  from  Ohio  to  take  him  back 
again. 

It  was  in  vain  that  he  pleaded  his  later  engagements ; 
it  was  in  vain  that  his  new  wife  raised  her  shrillest  re 
monstrances,  not  unmingled  with  expressions  of  vehement 
indignation  at  the  revelation  of  her  husband's  real  po 
sition  ;  the  witch  wife  was  inexorable ;  go  he  must,  and 
that  speedily.  Fully  impressed  with  a  belief  in  her 
supernatural  power  of  compelling  obedience,  and  perhaps 
dreading  more  than  witchcraft  itself  the  effects  of  the 
unlucky  disclosure  on  the  temper  of  his  New  England 
helpmate,  he  made  a  virtue  of  the  necessity  of  the  case, 
bade  farewell  to  the  latter  amidst  a  perfect  hurricane  of 
reproaches,  and  mounted  the  white  horse,  with  his  old 
wife  on  the  pillion  behind  him.  Of  that  ride  Burger 
might  have  written  a  counterpart  to  his  ballad:  — 

"  Tramp,  tramp,  along  the  shore  they  ride, 
Splash,  splash,  along  the  sea." 

Two  or  three  years  had  passed  away,  bringing  no  tidings 
of  the  unfortunate  husband,  when  he  once  more  made  his 


MAGICIANS   AND    WITCH    FOLK.  287 

appearance  in  his  native  village.  He  was  not  disposed 
to  be  very  communicative ;  but  for  one  thing,  at  least,  he 
seemed  willing  to  express  his  gratitude.  His  Ohio  wife, 
having  no  spell  against  intermittent  fever,  had  paid  the 
debt  of  nature  and  had  left  him  free ;  in  view  of  which, 
his  surviving  wife,  after  manifesting  a  due  degree  of  re 
sentment,  consented  to  take  him  back  to  her  bed  and 
board ;  and  I  could  never  learn  that  she  had  cause  to 
regret  her  clemency. 


THE   AGENCY   OF   EVIL.* 

IN  this  life  of  ours,  so  full  of  mystery,  so  hung  about 
with  wonders,  so  written  over  with  dark  riddles,  where 
even  the  lights  held  by  prophets  and  inspired  ones  only 
serve  to  disclose  the  solemn  portals  of  a  future  *state  of 
being,  leaving  all  beyond  in  shadow,  perhaps  the  dark 
est  and  most  difficult  problem  which  presents  itself  is  that 
of  the  origin  of  evil  —  the  source  whence  flow  the  black 
and  bitter  waters  of  sin,  and  suffering,  and  discord  —  the 
wrong  which  all  men  see  in  others  and  feel  in  themselves 
—  the  unmistakable  facts  of  human  depravity  and  mis 
ery.  A  superficial  philosophy  may  attempt  to  refer  all 
these  dark  phenomena  of  man's  existence  to  his  own 
passions,  circumstances,  and  will ;  but  the  thoughtful  ob 
server  cannot  rest  satisfied  with  secondary  causes.  The 
grossest  materialism,  at  times,  reveals  something  of  that 
latent  dread  of  an  invisible  and  spiritual  influence  which 
is  inseparable  from  our  nature.  Like  Eliphaz  the  Teman- 

*  From  the  "  Supernaturalism  of  New  England,"  in  the  Democratic 

Review. 

(288) 


THE    AGENCY    OF    EVIL.  289 

ite,  it  is  conscious  of  a  spirit  passing  before  its  face,  the 
form  whereof  is  not  discerned.  It  is  indeed  true  that 
our  modern  divines  and  theologians,  as  if  to  atone  for  the 
too  easy  credulity  of  their  order  formerly,  have  uncere 
moniously  consigned  the  old  beliefs  of  satanic  agency, 
demoniacal  possession,  and  witchcraft  to  Milton's  recepta 
cle  of  exploded  follies  and  detected  impostures,  — 

"  Over  the  backside  of  the  world  far  off, 
Into  a  limbo  broad  and  large,  and  called 
The  paradise  of  fools,"  — 

that  indeed,  out  of  their  peculiar  province,  and  apart 
from  the  routine  of  their  vocation,  they  have  become  the 
most  thorough  sceptics  and  unbelievers  among  us.  Yet 
it  must  be  owned  that,  if  they  have  not  the  marvellous 
themselves,  they  are  the  cause  of  it  in  others.  In  certain 
states  of  mind,  the  very  sight  of  a  clergyman  in  his  sombre 
professional  garb  is  sufficient  to  awaken  all  the  wonder 
ful  within  us.  Imagination  goes  wandering  back  to  the 
subtle  priesthood  of  mysterious  Egypt.  We  think  of 
Jannes  and  Jambres;  of  the  Persian  magi;  dim  oak 
groves,  with  Druid  altars,  and  priests,  and  victims,  rise 
before  us.  For  what  is  the  priest  even  of  our  Xew  Eng 
land  but  a  living  testimony  to  the  truth  of  the  supernatu 
ral  and  the  reality  of  the  unseen  —  a  man  of  mystery, 
walking  in  the  shadow  of  the  ideal  world  —  by  profession 
19 


290  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

an  expounder  of  spiritual  wonders  ?  Laugh  he  may  at 
the  old  tales  of  astrology  and  witchcraft  and  demoniacal 
possession ;  but  does  he  not  believe  and  bear  testimony  to 
his  faith  in  the  reality  of  that  dark  essence  which  Scrip 
ture  more  than  hints  at,  which  has  modified  more  or  less 
all  the  religious  systems  and  speculations  of  the  heathen 
world  —  the  Ahriman  of  the  Parsee,  the  Typhon  of  the 
Egyptian,  the  Pluto  of  the  Roman  mythology,  the  Devil 
of  Jew,  Christian,  and  Mussulman,  the  Machinito  of  the 
Indian  —  evil  in  the  universe  of  goodness,  darkness  in  the 
light  of  divine  intelligence — in  itself  the  great  and  crown 
ing  mystery  from  which  by  no  unnatural  process  of 
imagination  may  be  deduced  every  thing  which  our  fore 
fathers  believed  of  the  spiritual  world  and  supernatural 
agency?  That  fearful  being  with  his  tributaries  and 
agents,  —  "  the  devil  and  his  angels,"  —  how  awfully  he 
rises  before  us  in  the  brief  outline  limning  of  the  sacred 
writers  !  How  he  glooms,  "  in  shape  and  gesture  proudly 
eminent,"  on  the  immortal  canvas  of  Milton  and  Dante ! 
What  a  note  of  horror  does  his  name  throw  into  the  sweet 
Sabbath  psalmody  of  our  churches  !  What  strange,  dark 
fancies  are  connected  with  the  very  language  of  com 
mon-law  indictments,  when  grand  juries  find  under  oath 
that  the  offence  complained  of  has  been  committed  "at 
the  instigation  of  the  devil "  ! 

How  hardly  effaced  are  the  impressions  of  childhood ! 


THE    AGENCY    OF    EVIL.  291 

Even  at  this  day,  at  the  mention  of  the  evil  angel, 
an  image  rises  before  me  like  that  with  which  I  used 
especially  to  horrify  myself  in  an  old  copy  of  Pilgrim's 
Progress.  Horned,  hoofed,  scaly,  and  fire-breathing,  his 
caudal  extremity  twisted  tight  with  rage,  I  remember 
him,  illustrating  the  tremendous  encounter  of  Christian 
in  the  valley  where  "  Apollyon  straddled  over  the  whole 
breadth  of  the  way."  There  was  another  print  of  the 
enemy  which  made  no  slight  impression  upon  me.  It 
was  the  frontispiece  of  an  old,  smoked,  snuffstained 
pamphlet,  the  property  of  an  elderly  lady,  (who  had  a 
fine  collection  of  similar  wonders,  wherewith  she  was  kind 
enough  to  edify  her  young  visitors,)  containing  a  solemn 
account  of  the  fate  of  a  wicked  dancing  party  in  New 
Jersey,  whose  irreverent  declaration,  that  they  would  have 
a  fiddler  if  they  had  to  send  to  the  lower  regions  after  him, 
called  up  the  fiend  himself,  who  forthwith  commenced 
playing,  while  the  company  danced  to  the  music  inces 
santly,  without  the  power  to  suspend  their  exercise,  until 
their  feet  and  legs  were  worn  off  to  the  knees !  The  rude 
woodcut  represented  the  demon  fiddler  and  his  agonized 
companions  literally  stumping  it  up  and  down  in  "cotil 
lons,  jigs,  strathspeys,  and  reels."  He  would  have 
answered  very  well  to  the  description  of  the  infernal 
piper  in  Tarn  O'Shanter. 


292  KECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

To  this  popular  notion  of  the  impersonation  of  the 
principle  of  evil  we  are  doubtless  indebted  for  the  whole 
dark  legacy  of  witchcraft  and  possession.  Failing  in  our 
efforts  to  solve  the  problem  of  the  origin  of  evil,  we  fall 
back  upon  the  idea  of  a  malignant  being  —  the  antagonism 
of  good.  Of  this  mysterious  and  dreadful  personification 
we  find  ourselves  constrained  to  speak  with  a  degree  of 
that  awe  and  reverence  which  are  always  associated  with 
undefined  power  and  the  ability  to  harm.  "  The  devil," 
says  an  old  writer,  "  is  a  dignity,  though  his  glory  be 
somewhat  faded  and  wan,  and  is  to  be  spoken  of  accord 
ingly." 

The  evil  principle  of  Zoroaster  was  from  eternity 
self-created  and  existent,  and  some  of  the  early  Christian 
sects  held  the  same  opinion.  The  gospel,  however,  affords 
no  countenance  to  this  notion  of  a  divided  sovereignty  of 
the  universe.  The  divine  Teacher,  it  is  true,  in  dis 
coursing  of  evil,  made  use  of  the  language  prevalent  in 
his  time,  and  which  was  adapted  to  the  gross  conceptions 
of  his  Jewish  hearers ;  but  he  nowhere  presents  the  im- 
bodiment  of  sin  as  an  antagonism  to  the  absolute  power 
and  perfect  goodness  of  God,  of  whom,  and  through  whom, 
and  to  whom  are  all  things.  Pure  himself,  he  can  create 
nothing  impure.  Evil,  therefore,  has  no  eternity  in  the 
past.  The  fact  of  its  present  actual  existence  is  indeed 


THE    AGENCY    OF    EVIL.  293 

strongly  stated ;  and  it  is  not  given  us  to  understand  the 
secret  of  that  divine  alchemy  whereby  pain,  and  sin,  and 
discord  become  the  means  to  beneficent  ends  worthy  of  the 
revealed  attributes  of  the  infinite  Parent.  Unsolved  by 
human  reason  or  philosophy,  the  dark  mystery  remains 
to  baffle  the  generations  of  men ;  and  only  to  the  eye  of 
humble  and  childlike  faith  can  it  ever  be  reconciled  to  the 
purity,  justice,  and  mercy  of  Him  who  is  "  light,  and  in 
whom  is  no  darkness  at  all." 

"  Do  you  not  believe  in  the  devil  ?  "  some  one  once 
asked  the  nonconformist  Robinson.  "  I  believe  in  God," 
was  the  reply ;  "  don't  you  ?  " 

Henry  of  Nettesheim  says  "  that  it  is  unanimously 
maintained  that  devils  do  wander  up  and  down  in  the 
earth ;  but  what  they  are,  or  how  they  are,  ecclesiasticals 
have  not  clearly  expounded."  Origen,  in  his  Platonic 
speculations  on  this  subject,  supposed  them  to  be  spirits 
who,  by  repentance,  might  be  restored,  that  in  the 
end  all  knees  might  be  bowed  to  the  Father  of  spirits, 
and  he  become  all  in  all.  Justin  Martyr  was  of  the 
opinion  that  many  of  them  still  hoped  for  their  sal 
vation;  and  the  Cabalists  held  that  this  hope  of  theirs 
was  well  founded.  One  is  irresistibly  reminded  here 
of  the  closing  verse  of  the  Address  to  the  Deil,  by 
Burns :  • — 


294  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

"  But  fare  ye  weel,  Auld  Nickie  ben  ! 
Gin  ye -wad  take  a  thought  and  mend, 
Ye  aiblins  might  —  I  dinna  ken— 

Still  hae  a  stake : 
I'm  wae  to  think  upon  yon  den 

E'en  for  your  sake." 

The  old  schoolmen  and  fathers  seem" to  agree  that  the 
devil  and  his  ministers  have  bodies  in  some  sort  material, 
subject  to  passions  and  liable  to  injury  and  pain.  Origen 
has  a  curious  notion  that  any  evil  spirit  who,  in  a  contest 
with  a  human  being,  is  defeated,  loses  from  thenceforth  all 
his  power  of  mischief,  and  may  be  compared  to  a  wasp 
who  has  lost  his  sting. 

"  The  devil,"  said  Samson  Occum,  the  famous  Indian 
preacher,  in  a  discourse  on  temperance,  "  is  a  gentleman, 
and  never  drinks."  Nevertheless  it  is  a  remarkable  fact, 
and  worthy  of  the  serious  consideration  of  all  who  "  tarry 
long  at  the  wine,"  that,  in  that  state  of  the  drunkard's 
malady  known  as  delirium  tremens,  the  adversary,  in  some 
shape  or  other,  is  generally  visible  to  the  sufferers,  or 
at  least,  as  Winslow  says  of  the  Powahs,  "  he  appeareth 
more  familiarly  to  them  than  to  others."  I  recollect  a 
statement  made  to  me  by  a  gentleman  who  has  had  bitter 
experience  of  the  evils  of  intemperance,  and  who  is  at  this 
time  devoting  his  fine  talents  to  the  cause  of  philanthropy 


THE    AGENCY    OF    EVIL.  295 

and  mercy,  as  the  editor  of  one  of  our  best  temperance 
journals,  which  left  a  most  vivid  impression  on  my  mind. 
He  had  just  returned  from  a  sea  voyage;  and,  for  the 
sake  of  enjoying  a  debauch  unmolested  by  his  friends,  took 
up  his  abode  in  a  rumselling  tavern  in  a  somewhat  lonely 
location  on  the  seaboard.  Here  he  drank  for  many  days 
without  stint,  keeping  himself  the  whole  time  in  a  state  of 
semi-intoxication.  One  night  he  stood  leaning  against  a 
tree,  looking  listlessly  and  vacantly  out  upon  the  ocean ; 
the  waves  breaking  on  the  beach,  and  the  white  sails  of 
passing  vessels  vaguely  impressing  him  like  the  pictures 
of  a  dream.  He  was  startled  by  a  voice  whispering 
hoarsely  in  his  ear,  "  You  have  murdered  a  man;  the 
officers  of  justice  are  after  you;  you  must  fly  for  your 
life  ! "  Every  syllable  was  pronounced  slowly  and  sepa 
rately  ;  and  there  was  something  in  the  hoarse,  gasping 
sound  of  the  whisper  which  was  indescribably  dreadful. 
He  looked  around  him,  and,  seeing  nothing  but  the  clear 
moonlight  on  the  grass,  became  partially  sensible  that  he 
was  the  victim  of  illusion,  and  a  sudden  fear  of  insanity 
thrilled  him  with  a  momentary  horror.  Rallying  him 
self,  he  returned  to  the  tavern,  drank  another  glass  of 
brandy,  and  retired  to  his  chamber.  He  had  scarcely 
lain  his  head  on  the  pillow  when  he  heard  that  hoarse, 
low,  but  terribly  distinct  whisper,  repeating  the  same 
words.  He  describes  his  sensations  at  this  time  as  incon- 


296  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

ceivably  fearful.  Reason  was  struggling  with  insanity; 
but  amidst  the  confusion  and  mad  disorder  one  terrible 
thought  evolved  itself.  Had  he  not,  in  a  moment  of  mad 
frenzy  of  which  his  memory  made  no  record,  actually 
murdered  some  one  ?  And  was  not  this  a  warning  from 
Heaven  ?  Leaving  his  bed  and  opening  his  door,  he 
heard  the  words  again  repeated,  with  the  addition,  in  a 
tone  of  intense  earnestness,  "  Follow  me  I "  He  walked 
forward  in  the  direction  of  the  sound,  through  a  long 
entry,  to  the  head  of  the  staircase,  where  he  paused  for 
a  moment,  when  again  he  heard  the  whisper,  half  way 
down  the  stairs,  "  Follow  me  ! " 

Trembling  with  terror,  he  passed  down  two  flights  of 
stairs,  and  found  himself  treading  on  the  cold  brick  floor 
of  a  large  room  in  the  basement,  or  cellar,  where  he  had 
never  been  before.  The  voice  still  beckoned  him  on 
ward  ;  and,  groping  after  it,  his  hand  touched  an  upright 
post,  against  which  he  leaned  for  a  moment.  He  heard 
it  again  apparently  only  two  or  three  yards  in  front  of 
him :  "  You  have  murdered  a  man ;  the  officers  are 
close  behind  you  ;  follow  me !  "  Putting  one  foot  for 
ward  while  his  hand  still  grasped  the  post,  it  fell  upon 
empty  air,  and  he  with  difficulty  recovered  himself. 
Stooping  down  and  feeling  with  his  hands,  he  found  him 
self  on  the  very  edge  of  a  large  uncovered  cistern,  or 
tank,  filled  nearly  to  the  top  with  water.  The  sudden 


THE    AGENCY    OF    EVIL.  297 

shock  of  this  discovery  broke  the  horrible  enchantment. 
The  whisperer  was  silent.  He  believed,  at  the  time,  that 
he  had  been  the  subject,  and  well  nigh  the  victim,  of  a 
diabolical  delusion ;  and  he  states  that,  even  now,  with 
the  recollection  of  that  strange  whisper  is  always  associ 
ated  a  thought  of  the  universal  tempter. 

Our  worthy  ancestors  were,  in  their  own  view  of  the 
matter,  the  advance  guard  and  forlorn  hope  of  Christen 
dom  in  its  contest  with  the  bad  angel.  The  new  world, 
into  which  they  had  so  valiantly  pushed  the  outposts  of 
the  church  militant,  was  to  them,  not  God's  world,  but  the 
devil's.  They  stood  there  on  their  little  patch  of  sancti 
fied  territory  like  the  gamekeeper  of  Der  Freischutz  in 
the  charmed  circle ;  within  were  prayer  and  fasting,  un- 
melodious  psalmody  and  solemn  hewing  of  heretics  "  be 
fore  the  Lord  in  Gilgal ; "  without  were  "  dogs  and 
sorcerers,"  red  children  of  perdition,  Powah  wizards,  and 
"  the  foul  fiend."  In  their  grand  old  wilderness,  broken  by 
fair,  broad  rivers,  and  dotted  with  loveliest  lakes,  hang 
ing  with  festoons  of  leaf,  and  vine,  and  flower,  the  steep 
sides  of  mountains  whose  naked  tops  rose  over  the  sur 
rounding  verdure  like  altars  of  a  giant  world,  —  with  its 
early  summer  greenness  and  the  many-colored  wonder 
of  its  autumn,  all  glowing  as  if  the  rainbows  of  a  summer 
shower  had  fallen  upon  it,  under  the  clear,  rich  light 
of  a  sun  to  which  the  misty  day  of  their  cold  island  was 


298  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

as  moonlight,  —  they  saw  no  beauty,  they  recognized  no 
holy  revelation.  It  was  to  them  terrible  as  the  forest 
which  Dante  traversed  on  his  way  to  the  world  of  pain. 
Every  advance  step  they  made  was  upon  the  enemy's  terri 
tory.  And  one  has  only  to  read  the  writings  of  the  two 
Mathers  to  perceive  that  that  enemy  was  to  them  no 
metaphysical  abstraction,  no  scholastic  definition,  no  fig 
ment  of  a  poetical  fancy,  but  a  living,  active  reality, 
alternating  between  the  sublimest  possibilities  of  evil  and 
the  lowest  details  of  mean  mischief;  now  a  "tricksy 
spirit,"  disturbing  the  good  wife's  platters  or  soiling  her 
new-washed  linen,  and  anon  riding  the  storm  cloud  and 
pointing  its  thunderbolts ;  for,  as  the  elder  Mather  perti 
nently  inquires,  "  how  else  is  it  that  our  meeting  houses  are 
burned  by  the  lightning  ?  "  What  was  it,  for  instance,  but 
his  subtlety,  which,  speaking  through  the  lips  of  Madame 
Hutchinson,  confuted  the  "judges  of  Israel  "and  put  to 
their  wits'  end  the  godly  ministers  of  the  Puritan  Zion  ? 
Was  not  his  evil  finger  manifested  in  the  contumacious 
heresy  of  Roger  Williams  ?  Who  else  gave  the  Jesuit 
missionaries  —  locusts  from  the  pit  as  they  were  —  such 
a  hold  on  the  affections  of  those  very  savages  who  would 
not  have  scrupled  to  hang  the  scalp  of  pious  Father  Wil 
son  himself  from  their  girdles  ?  To  the  vigilant  eye  of 
Puritanism  was  he  not  alike  discernible  in  the  light  wan 
tonness  of  the  May-pole  revellers,  beating  time  with  the 


THE    AGENCY    OF    EVIL.  299 

cloven  foot  to  the  vain  music  of  obscene  dances,  and  in 
the  silent,  hat-canopied  gatherings  of  the  Quakers,  "  the 
most  melancholy  of  the  sects,"  as  Dr.  Moore  calls  them  ? 
Perilous  and  glorious  was  it  under  these  circumstances 
for  such  men  as  Mather  and  Stoughton  to  gird  up  their 
stout  loins  and  do  battle  with  the  unmeasured,  all-sur 
rounding  terror.  Let  no  man  lightly  estimate  their 
spiritual  knight  errantry.  The  heroes  of  old  romance 
who  went  about  smiting  dragons,  lopping  giants'  heads, 
and  otherwise  pleasantly  diverting  themselves,  scarcely 
deserve  mention  in  comparison .  with  our  New  England 
champions,  who,  trusting  not  to  carnal  sword  and  lance, 
in  a  contest  with  principalities  and  powers,  — 

" spirits  that  live  throughout, 

Vital  in  every  part,  not  as  frail  man,"  — 

encountered  their  enemies  with  weapons  forged  by  the 
stern  spiritual  armorer  of  Geneva.  The  life  of  Cotton 
Mather  is  as  full  of  romance  as  the  legends  of  Ariosto  or 
the  tales  of  Beltenebros  and  Florisando  in  Amadis  de 
Gaul.  All  about  him  was  enchanted  ground ;  devils 
glared  on  him  in  his  "  closet  wrestlings  ;  "  portents  blazed 
in  the  heavens  above  him ;  while  he,  commissioned  and 
set  apart  as  the  watcher,  and  warder,  and  spiritual  cham 
pion  of  "  the  chosen  people,"  stood  ever  ready  for  battle, 
with  open  eye  and  quick  ear  for  the  detection  of  the 


300  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

subtle  approaches  of  the  enemy.  No  wonder  is  it  that 
the  spirits  of  evil  combined  against  him ;  that  they  beset 
him  as  they  did  of  old  St.  Anthony ;  that  they  shut  up 
the  bowels  of  the  general  court  against  his  long-cher 
ished  hope  of  the  presidency  of  Old  Harvard  ;  that  they 
even  had  the  audacity  to  lay  hands  on  his  anti-diabolical 
manuscripts,  or  that  "  ye  divil  that  was  in  ye  girl  flewe 
at  and  tore"  his  grand  sermon  against  witches.  How 
edifying  is  his  account  of  the  young  bewitched  maiden 
whom  he  kept  in  his  house  for  the  purpose  of  making 
experiments  which  should  satisfy  all  "  obstinate  Saddu- 
cees  "  !  How  satisfactory  to  orthodoxy  and  confounding 
to  heresy  is  the  nice  discrimination  of  "  ye  divil  in  ye 
girl,"  who  was  choked  in  attempting  to  read  the  cate 
chism,  yet  found  no  trouble  with  a  pestilent  Quaker 
pamphlet ;  *  who  was  quiet  and  good  humored  when  the 

*  The  Quakers  appear  to  have,  at  a  comparatively  early  period, 
emancipated  themselves  in  a  great  degree  from  the  grosser  super 
stitions  of  their  times.  William  Penn,  indeed,  had  a  law  in  his  colony 
against  witchcraft ;  but  the  first  trial  of  a  person  suspected  of  this 
offence  seems  to  have  opened  his  eyes  to  its  absurdity.  George  Fox, 
judging  from  one  or  two  passages  in  his  journal,  appears  to  have  held 
the  common  opinions  of  the  day  on  the  subject ;  yet  when  confined 
in  Doomsdale  dungeon,  on  being  told  that  the  place  was  haunted 
and  that  the  spirits  of  those  who  had  died  there  still  walked  at  night 
in  his  room,  he  replied,  "  that  if  all  the  spirits  and  devils  in  hell  were 
there  he  was  over  them  in  the  power  of  God,  and  feared  no  such 
thing." 


THE   AGENCY    OF    EVIL.  301 

worthy  doctor  was  idle,  but  went  into  paroxysms  of  rage 
when  he  sat  down  to  indite  his  diatribes  against  witches 
and  familiar  spirits  ! 

All  this  is  pleasant  enough  now ;  we  can  laugh  at  the 
doctor  and  his  demons  ;  but  little  matter  of  laughter  was 
it  to  the  victims  on  Salem  Hill ;  to  the  prisoners  in  the 

The  enemies  of  the  Quakers,  in  order  to  account  for  the  power  and 
influence  of  their  first  preachers,  accused  them  of  magic  and  sorcery. 
"  The  Priest  of  Wakefield,"  says  George  Fox,  (one  trusts  he  does 
not  allude  to  our  old  friend  the  Ticar,)  "  raised  many  wicked  slanders 
upon  me,  as  that  I  carried  bottles  with  me  and  made  people  drink, 
and  that  made  them  follow  me  ;  that  I  rode  upon  a  great  black  horse, 
and  was  seen  in  one  county  upon  my  black  horse  in  one  hour,  and  in 
the  same  hour  in  another  county  fourscore  miles  off."  In  his  ac 
count  of  the  mob  which  beset  him  at  Walney  Island,  he  says,  "  When 
I  came  to  myself  I  saw  James  Lancaster's  wife  throwing  stones  at 
my  face,  and  her  husband  lying  over  me  to  keep  off  the  blows  and 
stones  ;  for  the  people  had  persuaded  her  that  I  had  bewitched  her 
husband." 

Cotton  Mather  attributes  the  plague  of  witchcraft  in  New  England 
in  about  an  equal  degree  to  the  Quakers  and  Indians.  The  first  of  the 
sect  who  visited  Boston,  Ann  Austin  and  Mary  Fisher,  —  the  latter  a 
young  girl,  —  were  seized  upon  by  Deputy  Governor  Bellingham,  in 
the  absence  of  Governor  Endicott,  and  shamefully  stripped  naked  for 
the  purpose  of  ascertaining  whether  they  were  witches  with  the  devil's 
mark  on  them.  In  1662  Elizabeth  Horton  and  Joan  Broksop,  two 
venerable  preachers  of  the  sect,  were  arrested  in  Boston,  charged 
by  Governor  Endicott  with  being  witches,  and  carried  two  days' 
journey  into  the  woods,  and  left  to  the  tender  mercies  of  Indians 
and  wolves. 


302  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

jails ;  to  poor  Giles  Corey,  tortured  with  planks  upon  his 
breast,  which  forced  the  tongue  from  his  mouth  and  his 
life  from  his  old,  palsied  body  ;  to  bereaved  and  quaking 
families ;  to  a  whole  community  priestridden  and  spec 
tre-smitten,  gasping  in  the  sick  dream  of  a  spiritual  night 
mare  and  given  over  to  believe  a  lie.  "VVe  may  laugh, 
for  the  grotesque  is  blended  with  the  horrible  ;  but  we 
must  also  pity  and  shudder.  The  clearsighted  men  who 
confronted  that  delusion  in  its  own  age,  disenchanting, 
with  strong,  good  sense  and  sharp  ridicule,  their  spell 
bound  generation,  —  the  German  "VVierus,  the  Italian 
D'Apone,  the  Epglish  Scot,  and  the  New  England  Calef, 
—  deserve  high  honors  as  the  benefactors  of  their  race. 
It  is  true  they  were  branded  through  life  as  infidels  and 
"  damnable  Sadducees ; "  but  the  truth  which  they  uttered 
lived  after  them,  and  wrought  out  its  appointed  work,  for 
it  had  a  divine  commission  and  God  speed. 

"  The  oracles  are  dumb ; 

No  voice  nor  hidious  hum 
Runs  through  the  arched  roof  in  words  deceiving  ; 

Apollo  from  his  shrine 

Can  now  no  more  divine, 
With  hollow  shriek  the  steep  of  Delphos  leaving." 

Dimmer  and  dimmer,  as  the  generations  pass  away, 
this   tremendous  terror,  this   all-pervading  espionage  of 


THE   AGENCY    OF   EVIL.  303 

evil,  this  active  incarnation  of  motiveless  malignity, 
presents  itself  to  the  imagination.  The  once  imposing 
and  solemn  rite  of  exorcism  has  become  obsolete  in  the 
church.  Men  are  no  longer  in  any  quarter  of  the  world 
racked  or  pressed  under  planks  to  extort  a  confession  of 
diabolical  alliance.  The  heretic  now  laughs  to  scorn  the 
solemn  farce  of  the  church  which,  in  the  name  of  the  All- 
Merciful,  formally  delivers  him  over  to  Satan.  And 
for  the  sake  of  abused  and  long-cheated  humanity  let 
us  rejoice  that  it  is  so,  when  we  consider  how  for  long, 
weary  centuries  the  millions  of  professed  Christendom 
stooped,  awestricken,  under  the  yoke  of  spiritual  and 
temporal  despotism,  grinding  on  from  generation  to  gen 
eration  in  a  despair  which  had  passed  complaining,  be 
cause  superstition,  in  alliance  with  tyranny,  had  filled 
their  upward  pathway  to  freedom  with  shapes  of  terror 
—  the  spectres  of  God's  wrath  to  the  uttermost,  the  fiend, 
and  that  torment  the  smoke  of  which  rises  forever. 
Through  fear  of  a  Satan  of  the  future,  —  a  sort  of  ban 
dog  of  priestcraft  held  in  its  leash  and  ready  to  be  let 
loose  upon  the  disputers  of  its  authority,  —  our  toiling 
brothers  of  past  ages  have  permitted  their  human  task 
masters  to  convert  God's  beautiful  world,  so  adorned  and 
fitted  for  the  peace  and  happiness  of  all,  into  a  great 
prison  house  of  suffering,  filled  with  the  actual  terrors 
which  the  imagination  of  the  old  poets  gave  to  the  realm 


304  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

of  Rhadamanthus.  And  hence,  while  I  would  not  weaken 
in  the  slightest  degree  the  influence  of  that  doctrine  of  fu 
ture  retribution,  —  the  accountability  of  the  spirit  for  the 
deeds  done  in  the  body,  —  the  truth  of  which  reason,  reve 
lation,  and  conscience  unite  in  attesting  as  the  necessary 
result  of  the  preservation  in  another  state  of  existence  of 
the  soul's  individuality  and  identity,  I  must,  nevertheless, 
rejoice  that  the  many  are  no  longer  willing  to  permit  the 
few,  for  their  especial  benefit,  to  convert  our  common 
Father's  heritage  into  a  present  hell,  where,  in  return 
for  undeserved  suffering  and  toil  uncompensated,  they  can 
have  gracious  and  comfortable  assurance  of  release  from 
a  future  one.  Better  is  the  fear  of  the  Lord  than  the 
fear  of  the  devil ;  holier  and  more  acceptable  the 
obedience  of  love  and  reverence  than  the  submission  of 
slavish  terror.  The  heart  which  has  felt  the  "  beauty  of 
holiness,"  which  has  been  in  some  measure  attuned  to  the 
divine  harmony,  which  now,  as  of  old  in  the  angel  hymn 
of  the  advent,  breathes  of  "  glory  to  God,  peace  on  earth, 
and  good  will  to  men,"  in  the  serene  atmosphere  of  that 
"  perfect  love  which  casteth  out  fear,"  smiles  at  the  ter 
rors  which  throng  the  sick  dreams  of  the  sensual,  which 
draw  aside  the  night  curtains  of  guilt,  and  startle  with 
whispers  of  revenge  the  oppressor  of  the  poor. 

There  is  a  beautiful  moral  in  one  of  Fouque's  miniature 
romances  —  Die  Kohlerfamilie.     The  fierce  spectre,  which 


THE    AGENCY    OF   EVIL.  305 

rose  giant-like,  in  its  blood-red  mantle,  before  the  selfish 
and  mercenary  merchant,  ever  increasing  in  size  and 
terror  with  the  growth  of  evil  and  impure  thought  in  the 
mind  of  the  latter,  subdued  by  prayer,  and  penitence,  and 
patient  watchfulness  over  the  heart's  purity,  became  a 
loving  and  gentle  visitation  of  soft  light  and  meekest  mel 
ody  —  "a  beautiful  radiance,  at  times  hovering  and  flow 
ing  on  before  the  traveller,  illuminating  the  bushes  and 
•foliage  of  the  mountain  forest  —  a  lustre  strange  and  love 
ly,  such  as  the  soul  may  conceive,  but  no  words  express. 
He  felt  its  power  in  the  depths  of  his  being  —  felt  it  like 
the  mystic  breathing  of  the  Spirit  of  God." 

The  excellent  Baxter  and  other  pious  men  of  his  day 
deprecated  in  all  sincerity  and  earnestness  the  growing 
disbelief  in  witchcraft  and  diabolical  agency,  fearing  that 
mankind,  losing  faith  in  a  visible  Satan  and  in  the  super 
natural  powers  of  certain  paralytic  old  women,  would 
diverge  into  universal  scepticism.  It  is  one  of  the  sad 
dest  of  sights  to  see  these  good  men  standing  sentry  at 
the  horn  gate  of  dreams  ;  attempting  against  most  dis 
couraging  odds  to  defend  their  poor  fallacies  from  pro 
fane  and  irreverent  investigation ;  painfully  pleading 
doubtful  Scripture  and  still  more  doubtful  tradition  in 
behalf  of  detected  and  convicted  superstitions  tossed  on 
the  sharp  horns  of  ridicule,  stretched  on  the  rack  of  phi 
losophy,  or  perishing  under  the  exhausted  receiver  of 
20 


306  RECREATIONS   AND    MISCELLANIES. 

science.  A  clearer  knowledge  of  the  aspirations,  capaci 
ties,  and  necessities  of  the  human  soul,  and  of  the  revela 
tions  which  the  infinite  Spirit  makes  to  it,  not  only 
through  the  senses  by  the  phenomena  of  outward  nature, 
but  by  that  inward  and  direct  communion  which,  under 
different  names,  has  been  recognized  by  the  devout  and 
thoughtful  of  every  religious  sect  and  school  of  philoso 
phy,  would  have  saved  them  much  anxious  labor  and  a 
good  deal  of  reproach  withal  in  their  hopeless  champion 
ship  of  error.  The  witches  of  Baxter  and  "  the  black 
man "  of  Mather  have  vanished ;  belief  in  them  is  no 
longer  possible  on  the  part  of  sane  men.  But  this  mys 
terious  universe,  through  which,  half  Veiled  in  its  own 
shadow,  our  dim  little  planet  is  wheeling,  with  its  star 
worlds  and  thought-wearying  spaces,  remains.  Nature's 
mighty  miracle  is  still  over  and  around  us;  and  hence 
awe,  wonder,  and  reverence  remain  to  be  the  inheritance 
of  humanity:  still  are  there  beautiful  repentances  and 
holy  death  beds ;  and  still  over  the  soul's  darkness  and 
confusion  rises,  starlike,  the  great  idea  of  duty.  By 
higher  and  better  influences  than  the  poor  spectres  of 
superstition  man  must  henceforth  be  taught  to  reverence 
the  Invisible,  and,  in  the  consciousness  of  his  own  weak 
ness,  and  sin,  and  sorrow,  to  lean  with  childlike  trust  on 
the  wisdom  and  mercy  of  an  overruling  Providence  — 
walking  by  faith  through  the  shadow  and  mystery,  and 


THE   AGENCY    OF   EVIL.  307 

cheered  by  the  remembrance  that,  whatever  may  be  his 
apparent  allotment,  — 

"  God's  greatness  flows  around  our  incompleteness  ; 
Round  our  restlessness  his  rest." 

It  is  a  sad  spectacle  to  find  the  glad  tidings  of  the 
Christian  faith  and  its  "  reasonable  service "  of  devotion 
transformed  by  fanaticism  and  credulity  into  superstitious 
terror  and  wild  extravagance  ;  but,  if  possible,  there  is 
one  still  sadder.  It  is  that  of  men  in  our  own  time  re 
garding  with  satisfaction  such  evidences  of  human  weak 
ness  and  professing  to  find  in  them  new  proofs  of  their 
miserable  theory  of  a  godless  universe,  and  new  occasion 
for  sneering  at  sincere  devotion  as  cant,  and  humble  rev 
erence  as  fanaticism.  Alas !  in  comparison  with  such, 
the  religious  enthusiast,  who  in  the  midst  of  his  delusion 
still  feels  that  he  is  indeed  a  living  soul  and  an  heir  of 
immortality,  to  whom  God  speaks  from  the  immensities 
of  his  universe,  is  a  sane  man.  Better  is  it  in  a  life 
like  ours  to  be  even  a  howling  dervis  or  a  dancing  Shaker, 
confronting  imaginary  demons  with  Thalaba's  talisman 
of  FAITH,  than  to  lose  the  consciousness  of  our  own 
spiritual  nature  and  look  upon  ourselves  as  mere  brute 
masses  of  animal  organization  —  barnacles  on  a  dead  uni 
verse  ;  looking  into  the  dull  grave  with  no  hope  beyond  it ; 
earth  gazing  into  earth,  and  saying  to  corruption,  "  Thou 
art  my  father ; "  and  to  the  worm,  "  Thou  art  my  sister." 


THE   LITTLE  IRON   SOLDIER; 

O  H  , 

WHAT  AMINADAB  IVISON  DREAMED  ABOUT. 

AMINADAB  IVISON  started  up  in  his  bed.  The  great 
clock  at  the  head  of  the  staircase,  an  old  and  respected 
heirloom  of  the  family,  struck  one. 

"Ah,"  said  he,  heaving  up  a  great  sigh  from  the 
depths  of  his  inner  man,  "  I've  had  a  tried  time  of  it." 

"  And  so  have  I,"  said  the  wife.  "  Thee's  been  kicking 
and  threshing  about  all  night.  I  do  wonder  what  ails 
thee." 

And  well  she  might;  for  her  husband,  a  well-to-do, 
portly,  middle-aged  gentleman,  being  blessed  with  an  easy 
conscience,  a  genial  temper,  and  a  comfortable  digestion, 
was  able  to  bear  a  great  deal  of  sleep,  and  seldom  varied 
a  note  in  the  gamut  of  his  snore  from  one  year's  end  to 
another. 

"  A  very  remarkable  exercise,"  soliloquized  Aminadab ; 
"very." 

(308) 


THE    LITTLE    IRON    SOLDIER.  309 

"  Dear  me  !  what  was  it  ? "  inquired  his  wife. 

"  It  must  have  been  a  dream,"  said  Aminadab. 

"O,  is  that  all?"  returned  the  good  woman.  "I'm 
glad  it's  nothing  worse.  But  what  has  thee  been  dream 
ing  about  ?  " 

"  It's  the  strangest  thing,  Hannah,  that  thee  ever  heard 
of,"  said  Aminadab,  settling  himself  slowly  back  into  his 
bed.  "  Thee  recollects  Jones  sent  me  yesterday  a  sample 
of  castings  from  the  foundry.  Well,  I  thought  I  opened 
the  box  and  found  in  it  a  little  iron  man,  in  regimentals, 
with  his  sword  by  his  side  and  a  cocked  hat  on,  looking 
very  much  like  the  picture  in  the  transparency  over 
neighbor  O'Neal's  oyster  cellar  across  the  way.  I  thought 
it  rather  out  of  place  for  Jones  to  furnish  me  with  such  a 
sample,  as  I  should  not  feel  easy  to  show  it  to  my  cus 
tomers,  on  account  of  its  warlike  appearance.  However, 
as  the  work  was  well  done,  I  took  the  little  image  and  set 
him  up  on  the  table,  against  the  wall ;  and,  sitting  down 
opposite,  I  began  to  think  over  my  business  concerns, 
calculating  how  much  they  would  increase  in  profit  in  case 
a  tariff  man  should  be  chosen  our  ruler  for  the  next  four 
years.  Thee  knows  I  am  not  in  favor  of  choosing  men 
of  blood  and  strife  to  bear  rule  in  the  land :  but  it  never 
theless  seems  proper  to  consider  all  the  circumstances  in 
this  case,  and,  as  one  or  the  other  of  the  candidates  of  the 
two  great  parties  must  be  chosen,  to  take  the  least  of  two 


310  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

evils.  All  at  once  I  heard  a  smart,  quick  tapping  on  the 
table ;  and,  looking  up,  there  stood  the  little  iron  man  close 
at  my  elbow,  winking  and  chuckling.  'That's  right, 
Aminadab  ! '  said  he,  clapping  his  little  metal  hands  to 
gether  till  he  rang  all  over  like  a  bell,  '  take  the  least  of 
two  evils.'  His  voice  had  a  sharp,  clear,  jingling  sound, 
like  that  of  silver  dollars  falling  into  a  till.  It  startled  me  so 
that  I  woke  up,  but,  finding  it  only  a  dream,  presently  fell 
asleep  again.  Then  I  thought  I  was  down  in  the  Ex 
change,  talking  with  neighbor  Simpkins  about  the  election 
and  the  tariff.  '  I  want  a  change  in  the  administration, 
but  I  can't  vote  for  a  military  chieftain/  said  neighbor 
Simpkins,  '  as  I  look  upon  it  unbecoming  a  Christian 
people  to  elect  men  of  blood  for  their  rulers/  '  I  don't 
know,'  said  I,  '  what  objection  thee  can  have  to  a  fighting 
man;  for  thee's  no  Friend,  and  hasn't  any  conscientious 
scruples  against  military  matters.  For  my  own  part,  I 
do  not  take  much  interest  in  politics,  and  never  attended 
a  caucus  in  my  life,  believing  it  best  to  keep  very  much 
in  the  quiet,  and  avoid,  as  far  as  possible,  all  letting  and 
hindering  things ;  but  there  may  be  cases  where  a  mili 
tary  man  may  be  voted  for  as  a  choice  of  evils,  and  as  a 
means  of  promoting  the  prosperity  of  the  country  in  busi 
ness  matters.'  l  What ! '  said  neighbor  Simpkins,  *  are 
you  going  to  vote  for  a  man  whose  whole  life  has  been 
spent  in  killing  people  ? '  This  vexed  me  a  little,  and  I 


THE    LITTLE    IRON    SOLDIER.         .  311 

told  him  there  was  such  a  thing  as  carrying  a  good  prin 
ciple  too  far,  and  that  he  might  live  to  be  sorry  that  he 
had  thrown  away  his  vote,  instead  of  using  it  discreetly. 
'  Why,  there's  the  iron  business/  said  I ;  but  just  then  I 
heard  a  clatter  beside  me ;  and,  looking  round,  there  was 
the  little  iron  soldier  clapping  his  hands  in  great  glee. 
'  That's  it,  Aminadab  ! '  said  he  ;  '  business  first,  conscience 
afterwards !  Keep  up  the  price  of  iron  with  peace  if  you 
can,  but  keep  it  up  at  any  rate.'  This  waked  me  again 
in  a  good  deal  of  trouble ;  but,  remembering  that  it  is  said 
that  '  dreams  come  of  the  multitude  of  business,'  I  once 
more  composed  myself  to  sleep." 

"  Well,  what  happened  next  ?  "  asked  his  wife. 

"  Why,  I  thought  I  was  in  the  meeting  house,  sitting 
on  the  facing  seat  as  usual.  I  tried  hard  to  settle  my 
mind  down  into  a  quiet  and  humble  state ;  but  somehow 
the  cares  of  the  world  got  uppermost,  and,  before  I  was 
well  aware  of  it,  I  was  far  gone  in  a  calculation  of  the 
chances  of  the  election,  and  the  probable  rise  in  the  price 
of  iron  in  the  event  of  the  choice  of  a  president  favorable 
to  a  high  tariff.  Rap,  tap,  went  something  on  the  floor. 
I  opened  my  eyes,  and  there  was  the  little  image,  redhot, 
as  if  just  out  of  the  furnace,  dancing,  and  chuckling,  and 
clapping  his  hands.  '  That's  right,  Aminadab  ! '  said  he ; 
'  go  on  as  you  have  begun  ;  take  care  of  yourself  in  this 
world,  and  I'll  promise  you  you'll  be  taken  care  of  in  the 


312  KECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

next.  Peace  and  poverty,  or  war  and  money.  It's  a 
choice  of  evils  at  best;  and  here's  Scripture  to  decide 
the  matter :  "  Be  not  righteous  overmuch."  '  Then  the 
wicked-looking  little  image  twisted  his  hot  lips,  and  leered 
at  me  with  his  blazing  eyes,  and  chuckled  and  laughed 
with  a  noise  exactly  as  if  a  bag  of  dollars  had  been  poured 
out  upon  the  meeting-house  floor.  This  waked  me  just 
now  in  such  a  fright.  I  wish  thee  would  tell  me,  Han 
nah,  what  thee  can  make  of  these  three  dreams?" 

"  It  don't  need  a  Daniel  to  interpret  them,"  answered 
Hannah.  "  Thee's  been  thinking  of  voting  to-morrow  for 
a  wicked  old  soldier,  because  thee  cares  more  for  thy  iron 
business  than  for  thy  testimony  against  wars  and  fightings. 
I  don't  a  bit  wonder  at  thy  seeing  the  iron  soldier  thee 
tells  of;  and  if  thee  votes  to-morrow  for  a  man  of  blood,  it 
wouldn't  be  strange  if  he  should  haunt  thee  all  thy  life." 

Aminadab  Ivison  was  silent,  for  his  conscience  spoke  in 
the  words  of  his  wife.  He  slept  no  more  that  night,  and 
rose  up  in  the  morning  a  wiser  and  better  man. 

When  he  went  forth  to  his  place  of  business  he  saw  the 
crowds  hurrying  to  and  fro;  there  were  banners  flying 
across  the  streets,  huge  placards  were  on  the  walls,  and 
he  heard  all  about  him  the  bustle  of  the  great  election. 

"  Friend  Ivison,"  said  a  redfaced  lawyer,  almost  breath 
less  with  his  hurry,  "  more  money  is  needed  in  the 
second  ward;  our  committees  are  doing  a  great  work 


THE    LITTLE    IRON    SOLDIER.  313 

there.  What  shall  I  put  you  down  for  ?  Fifty  dollars  ? 
If  we  carry  the  election,  your  property  will  rise  twenty 
per  cent.  Let  me  see ;  you  are  in  the  iron  business, 
I  think?" 

Aminadab  thought  of  the  little  iron  soldier  of  his  dream, 
and  excused  himself.  Presently  a  bank  director  came 
tearing  into  his  office, — 

"Have  you  voted  yet,  Mr.  Ivison?  It's  time  to  get 
your  vote  in.  I  wonder  you  should  be  in  your  office 
now.  No  business  has  so  much  at  stake  in  this  election 
as  yours." 

"I  don't  think  I  should  feel  entirely  easy  to  vote  for 
the  candidate,"  said  Aminadab. 

"  Mr.  Ivison,"  said  the  bank  director,  "  I  always  took 
you  to  be  a  shrewd,  sensible  man,  taking  men  and  things 
as  they  are.  The  candidate  may  not  be  all  you  could  wish 
for ;  but  when  the  question  is  between  him  and  a  worse 
man,  the  best  you  can  do  is,  to  choose  the  least  of  the 
two  evils." 

"Just  so  the  little  iron  man  said,"  thought  Aminadab. 
"  *  Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan ! '  No,  neighbor  Dis 
count,"  said  he,  "  I've  made  up  my  mind.  I  see  no  war 
rant  for  choosing  evil  at  all.  I  can't  vote  for  that  man." 
"Very  well,"  said  the  director,  starting  to  leave  the 
room  ;  "  you  can  do  as  you  please ;  but  if  we  are  defeated 
through  the  ill-timed  scruples  of  yourself  and  others,  and 


314  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

your  business  pinches  in  consequence,  you  needn't  expect 
us  to  help  men  who  won't  help  themselves.  Good  day, 
sir." 

Aminadab  sighed  heavily,  and  his  heart  sank  within 
him ;  but  he  thought  of  his  dream,  and  remained  steadfast. 
Presently  he  heard  heavy  steps  and  the  tapping  of  a 
cane  on  the  stairs ;  and  as  the  door  opened  he  saw  the 
drab  surtout  of  the  worthy  and  much-esteemed  friend  who 
sat  beside  him  at  the  head  of  the  meeting. 

"How's  thee  do,  Aminadab?"  said  he.  "Thee's 
voted,  I  suppose." 

" No,  Jacob,"  said  he ;  "I  don't  like  the  candidate.  I 
can't  see  my  way  clear  to  vote  for  a  warrior." 

"  Well,  but  thee  doesn't  vote  for  him  because  he  is  a 
warrior,  Aminadab,"  argued  the  other ;  "  thee  votes  for 
him  as  a  tariff  man  and  an  encourager  of  home  industry. 
I  don't  like  his  wars  and  fightings  better  than  thee  does ; 
but  I'm  told  he's  an  honest  man,  and  that  he  disapproves 
of  war  in  the  abstract,  although  he  has  been  brought  up  to 
the  business.  If  thee  feels  tender  about  the  matter,  I 
don't  like  to  urge  thee ;  but  it  really  seems  to  me  thee 
had  better  vote.  Times  have  been  rather  hard,  thou 
knows;  and  if  by  voting  at  this  election  we  can  make 
business  matters  easier,  I  don't  see  how  we  can  justify 
ourselves  in  staying  at  home.  Thou  knows  we  have  a 
command  to  be  diligent  in  business  as  well  as  fervent  in 


THE    LITTLE    IRON    SOLDIER.  '  315 

spirit,  and  that  the  apostle  accounted  him  who  provided 
not  for  his  own  household  worse  than  an  infidel.  I  think 
it  important  to  maintain  on  all  proper  occasions  our  gospel 
testimony  against  wars  and  fightings ;  but  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  going  to  extremes,  thou  knows,  and  becoming 
over-scrupulous,  as  I  think  thou  art  in  this  case.  It  is 
said,  thou  knows,  in  Ecclesiastes, t  Be  not  righteous  over 
much  :  why  shouldst  thou  destroy  thyself  ?  '  " 

"Ah,"  said  Aminadab  to  himself,  "that's  what  the 
little  iron  soldier  said  in  meeting."  So  he  was  strength 
ened  in  his  resolution,  and  the  persuasions  of  his  friend 
were  lost  upon  him. 

At  night  Aminadab  sat  by  his  parlor  fire,  comfortable 
alike  in  his  inner  and  his  outer  man.  "  Well,  Hannah," 
said  he,  "I've  taken  thy  advice.  I  didn't  vote  for  the 
great  fighter  to-day." 

"  I'm  glad  of  it,"  said  the  good  woman,  "  and  I  dare 
say  thee  feels  the  better  for  it." 

Aminadab  Ivison  slept  soundly  that  night,  and  saw  no 
more  of  the  little  iron  soldier. 


THE    CITY   OF  A   DAY.* 

THIS,  then,  is  Lowell  —  a  city  springing  up,  like  the 
enchanted  palaces  of  the  Arabian  tales,  as  it  were  in  a 
single  night,  stretching  far  and  wide  its  chaos  of  brick 
masonry  and  painted  shingles,  filling  the  angle  of  the 
confluence  of  the  Concord  and  the  Merrimac  with  the 
sights  and  sounds  of  trade  and  industry.  Marvellously 
here  has  art  and  labor  wrought  their  modern  miracles. 
I  can  scarcely  realize  the  fact  that  a  few  years  ago  these 
rivers,  now  famed  and  subdued  to  the  purposes  of  man 
and  charmed  into  slavish  subjection  to  the  wizard  of 
mechanism,  rolled  unchecked  towards  the  ocean  the 
waters  of  the  Winnipiseogee  and  the  rock-rimmed 
springs  of  the  "White  Mountains,  and  rippled  down  their 
falls  in  the  wild  freedom  of  Nature.  A  stranger,  in  view 
of  all  this  wonderful  change,  feels  himself,  as  it  were, 
thrust  forward  into  a  new  century ;  he  seems  treading 
on  the  outer  circle  of  the  millennium  of  steam  engines 

*  This  paper  and  several  which  follow  it  are  from  "  The  Stranger  in 

Lowell."  written  in  1843. 

(316) 


THE    CITY    OF    A    DAY.  317 

and  cotton  mills.  W'ORK  is  here  the  patron  saint.  Every 
thing  bears  his  image  and  superscription.  Here  is  no 
place  for  that  respectable  class  of  citizens  called  gentle 
men,  and  their  much  vilified  brethren  familiarly  known 
as  loafers.  Over  the  gateways  of  this  new- world  Man 
chester  glares  the  inscription,  "  WORK,  OR  DIE  ! "  Here 

"  Every  worm  beneath  the  moon 
Draws  different  threads,  and  late  or  soon 
Spins,  toiling  out  his  own  cocoon." 

The  founders  of  this  city  probably  never  dreamed  of 
the  theory  of  Charles  Lamb  in  respect  to  the  origin  of 
labor :  — 

"  Who  first  invented  work,  and  thereby  bound 

The  holiday  rejoicing  spirit  down 
To  the  never-ceasing  importunity 

Of  business  in  the  green  fields  and  the  town  ? 
Sabbathless  Satan  —  he  who  his  unglad 

Task  ever  plies  midst  rotatory  burnings  ; 
For  wrath  divine  has  made  him  like  a  wheel 

In  that  red  realm  from  whence  are  no  returnings." 

Rather,  of  course,  would  they  adopt  Carlyle's  apostrophe 
of  "  Divine  labor,  noble,  ever  fruitful  —  the  grand,  sole 
miracle  of  man  ;  "  for  this  is  indeed  a  city  consecrated  to 
thrift  —  dedicated,  every  square  rod  of  it,  to  the  divinity 
of  work ;  the  gospel  of  industry  preached  daily  and  hour 
ly  from  some  thirty  temples,  each  huger  than  the  Milan 


318  EECREATIONS   AND    MISCELLANIES. 

Cathedral  or  the  temple  of  Jeddo,  the  Mosque  of  St. 
Sophia  or  the  Chinese  pagoda  of  a  hundred  bells ;  its 
mighty  sermons  uttered  by  steam  and  water  power;  its 
music  the  everlasting  jar  of  mechanism  and  the  organ 
swell  of  many  waters ;  scattering  the  cotton  and  woollen 
leaves  of  its  evangel  from  the  wings  of  steamboats  and 
rail  cars  throughout  the  land ;  its  thousand  priests  and  its 
thousands  of  priestesses  ministering  around  their  spin 
ning-jenny  and  power-loom  altars,  or  thronging  the  long, 
unshaded  streets  in  the  level  light  of  sunset.  After  all, 
it  may  well  be  questioned  whether  this  gospel,  according 
to  Poor  Richard's  Almanac,  is  precisely  calculated  for 
the  redemption  of  humanity.  Labor,  graduated  to  man's 
simple  wants,  necessities,  and  unperverted  tastes,  is  doubt 
less  well ;  but  all  beyond  this  is  weariness  to  flesh  and 
spirit.  Every  web  which  falls  from  these  restless  looms 
has  a  history  more  or  less  connected  with  sin  and  suffer 
ing,  beginning  with  slavery  and  ending  with  overwork 
and  premature  death. 

A  few  years  ago,  while  travelling  in  Pennsylvania,  I 
encountered  a  small,  dusky-browed  German  of  the  name 
of  Etzler.  He  was  possessed  by  a  belief  that  the 
world  was  to  be  restored  to  its  paradisiacal  state  by  the 
sole  agency  of  mechanics,  and  that  he  had  himself  dis 
covered  the  means  of  bringing  about  this  very  desirable 
consummation.  His  whole  mental  atmosphere  was 


THE    CITY    OF   A   DAY.  319 

thronged  with  spectral  enginery  ;  wheel  within  wheel ; 
plans  of  hugest  mechanism;  Brobdignagian  steam  en 
gines  ;  Niagaras  of  water  power ;  windmills  with  "  sail- 
broad  vans  "  like  those  of  Satan  in  chaos,  by  the  proper 
application  of  which  every  valley  was  to  be  exalted  and 
every  hill  laid  low ;  old  forests  seized  by  their  shaggy 
taps  and  uprooted ;  old  morasses  drained ;  the  tropics 
made  cool;  the  eternal  ices  melted  around  the  poles; 
the  ocean  itself  covered  with  artificial  islands  —  blossom 
ing  gardens  of  the  blessed,  rocking  gently  on  the  bosom 
of  the  deep.  Give  him  "  three  hundred  thousand  dollars 
and  ten  years'  time,"  and  he  would  undertake  to  do  the 
work.  Wrong,  pain,  and  sin,  being  in  his  view  but  the 
results  of  our  physical  necessities,  ill-gratified  desires, 
and  natural  yearnings  for  a  better  state,  were  to  vanish 
before  the  millennium  of  mechanism.  "  It  would  be," 
said  he,  "  as  ridiculous  then  to  dispute  and  quarrel  about 
the  means  of  life  as  it  would  be  now  about  water  to 
drink  by  the  side  of  mighty  rivers  or  about  permission 
to  breathe  the  common  air."  To  his  mind  the  great 
forces  of  Nature  took  the  shape  of  mighty  and  benig 
nant  spirits,  sent  hitherward  to  be  the  servants  of  man  in 
restoring  to  him  his  lost  paradise;  waiting  only  for  his 
word  of  command  to  apply  their  giant  energies  to  the 
task,  but  as  yet  struggling  blindly  and  aimlessly,  giv 
ing  ever  and  anon  gentle  hints,  in  the  way  of  earthquake, 


320  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

fire,  and  flood,  that  they  are  weary  of  idleness,  and  would 
fain  be  set  at  work.  Looking  down,  as  I  now  do,  upon 
these  huge  brick  workshops,  I  have  thought  of  poor 
Etzler,  and  wondered  whether  he  would  admit,  were  he 
with  me,  that  his  mechanical  forces  have  here  found  their 
proper  employment  of  millennium  making.  Grinding  on, 
each  in  his  iron  harness,  invisible,  yet  shaking  by  his 
regulated  and  repressed  power  his  huge  prison  house 
from  basement  to  capstone,  is  it  true  that  the  genii  of 
mechanism  are  really  at  work  here,  raising  us,  by  wheel 
and  pulley,  steam  and  water  power,  slowly  up  that  in 
clined  plane  from  whose  top  stretches  the  broad  table 
land  of  promise  ? 

Many  of  the  streets  of  Lowell  present  a  lively  and 
neat  aspect,  and  are  adorned  with  handsome  public  and 
private  buildings ;  but  they  lack  one  pleasant  feature  of 
older  towns  —  broad,  spreading  shade  trees.  One  feels 
disposed  to  quarrel  with  the  characteristic  utilitarianism 
of  the  first  settlers,  which  swept  so  entirely  away  the 
green  beauty  of  Nature.  For  the  last  few  days  it  has 
been  as  hot  here  as  Nebuchadnezzar's  furnace  or  Mon 
sieur  Chabert's  oven,  the  sun  glaring  down  from  a  copper 
sky  upon  these  naked,  treeless  streets,  in  traversing  which 
one  is  tempted  to  adopt  the  language  of  a  warm-weather 
poet : — 

"  The  lean,  like  walking  skeletons,  go  stalking  pale  and  gloomy  ; 
The  fat,  like  redhot  warming  pans,  send  hotter  fancies  through  me ; 


THE    CITY    OF    A    DAY.  321 

I  wake  from  dreams  of  polar  ice,  on  which  I've  been  a  slider, 
Like  fishes  dreaming  of  the  sea  and  waking  in  the  spider." 

How  unlike  the  elm-lined  avenues  of  New  Haven,  upon 
whose  cool  and  graceful  panorama  the  stranger  looks 
down  from  the  Judge's  Cave,  or  the  vine-hung  pinnacles  of 
West  Rock,  its  tall  spires  rising  white  and  clear  above 
the  level  greenness  !  —  or  the  breezy  leafiness  of  Port 
land,  with  its  wooded  islands  in  the  distance,  and  itself 
overhung  with  verdant  beauty,  rippling  and  waving  in 
the  same  cool  breeze  which  stirs  the  waters  of  the  beauti 
ful  Bay  of  Casco !  But  time  will  remedy  all  this  ;  and, 
when  Lowell  shall  have  numbered  half  the  years  of  her 
sister  cities,  her  newly-planted  elms  and  maples,  which 
now  only  cause  us  to  contrast  their  shadeless  stems  with 
the  leafy  glory  of  their  parents  of  the  forest,  will  stretch 
out  to  the  future  visitor  arms  of  welcome  and  repose. 

There  is  one  beautiful  grove  in  Lowell,  —  that  on 
Chapel  Hill,  —  where  a  cluster  of  fine  old  oaks  lift  their 
sturdy  stems  and  green  branches,  in  close  proximity  to 
the  crowded  city,  blending  the  cool  rustle  of  their  leaves 
with  the  din  of  machinery.  As  I  look  at  them  in  this 
gray  twilight  they  seem  lonely  and  isolated,  as  if  wonder 
ing  what  has  become  of  their  old  forest  companions,  and 
vainly  endeavoring  to  recognize  in  the  thronged  and 
dusty  streets  before  them  those  old,  graceful  colonnades  of 
21 


322  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

maple  and  thick-shaded  oaken  vistas,  stretching  from 
river  to  river,  carpeted  with  the  flowers  and  grasses  of 
spring,  or  ankle  deep  with  leaves  of  autumn,  through 
whose  leafy  canopy  the  sunlight  melted  in  upon  wild 
birds,  shy  deer,  and  red  Indians.  Long  may  these 
oaks  remain  to  remind  us  that,  if  there  be  utility  in  the 
new,  there  was  beauty  in  the  old,  leafy  Puseyites  of  Na 
ture,  calling  us  back  to  the  past,  but,  like  their  Oxford 
brethren,  calling  in  vain ;  for  neither  in  polemics  nor  in 
art  can  we  go  backward  in  an  age  whose  motto  is  ever 

"ONWARD." 

The  population  of  Lowell  is  constituted  mainly  of  New 
Englanders  ;  but  there  are  representatives  here  of  almost 
every  part  of  the  civilized  world.  The  good-humored 
face  of  the  Milesian  meets  one  at  almost  every  turn ; 
the  shrewdly  solemn  Scotchman,  the  transatlantic  Yan 
kee,  blending  the  crafty  thrift  of  Bryce  Snailsfoot  with 
the  stern  religious  heroism  of  Cameron  ;  the  blue-eyed, 
fair-haired  German  from  the  towered  hills  which  -over 
look  the  Rhine  —  slow,  heavy,  and  unpromising  in  his 
exterior,  yet  of  the  same  mould  and  mettle  of  the  men 
who  rallied  for  "fatherland"  at  the  Tyrtean  call  of 
Korner  and  beat  back  the  chivalry  of  France  from  the 
banks  of  the  Katzback  —  the  countrymen  of  Richter,  and 
Goethe,  and  our  own  Follen.  Here,  too,  are  peddlers 
from  Hamburg,  and  Bavaria,  and  Poland,  with  their 


THE    CITY    OF    A    DAY.  323 


sharp  Jewish  faces,  and  black,  keen  eyes.  At  this  mo 
ment  beneath  my  window  are  two  sturdy,  sunbrowned 
Swiss  maidens  grinding  music  for  a  livelihood,  rehears 
ing  in  a  strange  Yankee  land  the  simple  songs  of  their 
old  mountain  home,  reminding  me,  by  their  foreign  garb 
and  language,  of 

"  Lauterbrunnen's  peasant  girl." 

Poor  wanderers  !  I  cannot  say  that  I  love  their  music  ; 
but  now,  as  the  notes  die  away,  and,  to  use  the  words 
of  Dr.  Holmes,  "silence  comes  like  a  poultice  to  heal  the 
wounded  ear,"  I  feel  grateful  for  their  visitation.  Away 
from  crowded  thoroughfares,  from  brick  walls  and  dusty 
avenues,  at  the  sight  of  these  poor  peasants  I  have  gone 
in  thought  to  the  vale  of  Chamouny,  and  seen,  with 
Coleridge,  the  morning  star  pausing  on  the  "  bald,  awful 
head  of  sovereign  Blanc,"  and  the  sun  rise  and  set  upon 
snowy-crested  mountains,  down  in  whose  valleys  the  night 
still  lingers ;  and,  following  in  the  track  of  Byron  and 
Rousseau,  have  watched  the  lengthening  shadows  of  the 
hills  on  the  beautiful  waters  of  the  Genevan  lake.  Bless 
ings,  then,  upon  these  young  wayfarers,  for  they  have 
<;  blessed  me  unawares."  In  an  hour  of  sickness  and  las 
situde  they  have  wrought  for  me  the  miracle  of  Loretto's 
Chapel,  and  borne  me  away  from  the  scenes  around  me 
and  the  sense  of  personal  suffering  to  thafr  wonderful  land 


324  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

where  Nature  seems  still  uttering,  from  lake  and  valley, 
and  from  mountains  whose  eternal  snows  lean  on  the  hard, 
blue  heaven,  the  echoes  of  that  mighty  hymn  of  a  new- 
created  world  when  "  the  morning  stars  sang  together, 
and  all  the  sons  of  God  shouted  for  joy." 

But  of  all  classes  of  foreigners  the  Irish  are  by  far  the 
most  numerous.  Lighthearted,  wrongheaded,  impul 
sive,  uncalculating,  with  an  Oriental  love  of  hyperbole, 
and  too  often  a  common  dislike  of  cold  water  and  of  that 
gem  which  the  fable  tells  us  rests  at  the  bottom  of  the 
well,  the  Celtic  elements  of  their  character  do  not  readily 
accommodate  themselves  to  those  of  the  hard,  cool,  self- 
relying  Anglo-Saxon.  I  am  free  to  confess  to  a  very 
thorough  dislike  of  their  religions  intolerance  and  bigotry, 
but  am  content  to  wait  for  the  change  that  time  and  the 
attrition  of  new  circumstances  and  ideas  must  necessarily 
make  in  this  respect.  Meanwhile  I  would  strive  to  rev 
erence  man  as  man,  irrespective  of  his  birthplace.  A 
stranger  in  a  strange  land  is  always  to  me  an  object  of 
sympathy  and  interest.  Amidst  all  his  apparent  gayety 
of  heart  and  national  drollery  and  wit,  the  poor  Irish  emi 
grant  has  sad  thoughts  of  the  "ould  mother  of  him," 
sitting  lonely  in  her  solitary  cabin  by  the  bogside  ;  recol 
lections  of  a  father's  blessing  and  a  sister's  farewell  are 
haunting  him ;  a  grave  mound  in  a  distant  churchyard 
far  beyond  the  "  wide  wathers  "  has  an  eternal  greenness 


THE    CITY    OF    A    DAY.  32") 

in  his  memory  ;  for  there,  perhaps,  lies  a  "  darlint  child  " 
or  a  "swate  crather"  who  once  loved  him.  The  new 
world  is  forgotten  for  the  moment ;  blue  Killarney  and  the 
Liny  sparkle  before  him,  and  Glendalough  stretches  be 
neath  him  its  dark,  still  mirror ;  he  sees  the  same  even 
ing  sunshine  rest  upon  and  hallow  alike  with  Nature's 
blessing  the  ruins  of  the  Seven  Churches  of  Ireland's 
apostolic  age,  the  broken  mound  of  the  Druids,  and  the 
round  towers  of  the  Phoenician  sun  worshippers  ;  pleasant 
and  mournful  recollections  of  his  home  waken  within  him  ; 
and  the  rough  and  seemingly  careless  and  lighthearted 
laborer  melts  into  tears.  It  is  no  light  thing  to  abandon 
one's  own  country  and  household  gods.  Touching  and 
beautiful  was  the  injunction  of  the  prophet  of  the  He 
brews  :  "Ye  shall  not  oppress  the  stranger;  for  ye  know 
the  heart  of  the  stranger,  seeing  that  ye  were  strangers  in 
the  land  of  Egypt." 


PATUCKET    FALLS. 

MANY  years  ago  I  read,  in  some  old  chronicle  of  the 
early  history  of  New  England,  a  paragraph  which  has 
ever  since  haunted  my  memory,  calling  up  romantic 
associations  of  wild  Nature  and  wilder  man :  — 

"  THE  SACHEM  WONOLANSET,  WHO  LIVED  BY  THE 
GREAT  FALLS  OF  PATUCKET,  ON  THE  MERRIMAC." 

It  was  with  this  passage  in  my  mind  that  I  visited  for 
the  first  time  the  Rapids  of  the  Merrimac,  above  Lowell. 

Passing  up  the  street  by  the  Hospital,  a  large  and 
elegant  mansion,  surrounded  by  trees,  and  shrubbery,  and 
climbing  vines,  I  found  myself,  after  walking  a  few  rods 
farther,  in  full  view  of  the  Merrimac.  A  deep  and  rocky 
channel  stretched  between  me  and  the  Dracut  shore,  along 
which  rushed  the  shallow  water  —  a  feeble,  broken,  and 
tortuous  current,  winding  its  way  among  splintered  rocks, 
rising  sharp  and  jagged  in  all  directions.  Drained  above 
the  falls  by  the  canal,  it  resembled  some  mountain  stream 
let  of  old  Spain,  or  some  Arabian  wady,  exhausted  by  a 
year's  drought.  Higher  up  the  arches  of  the  bridge 

(326) 


PATUCKET   FALLS.  327 

spanned  the  quick,  troubled  water ;  and,  higher  still,  the 
dam,  so  irregular  in  its  outline  as  to  seem  less  a  work  of 
Art  than  of  Nature,  crossed  the  bed  of  the  river  —  a  lake- 
like  placidity  above  contrasting  with  the  foam  and  mur 
mur  of  the  falls  below.  And  this  was  all  which  modern 
improvements  had  left  of  "  the  great  Patucket  Falls  "  of 
the  olden  time.  The  wild  river  had  been  tamed ;  the 
spirit  of  the  falls,  whose  hoarse  voice  the  Indian  once 
heard  in  the  dashing  of  the  great  water  down  the  rocks, 
had  become  the  slave  of  the  arch  conjurer,  Art ;  and,  like 
a  shorn  and  blinded  giant,  was  grinding  in  the  prison 
house  of  his  taskmaster. 

One  would  like  to  know  how  this  spot  must  have 
seemed  to  the  "  twenty  goodlie  persons  from  Concord  and 
Woburn"  who  first  visited  it  in  1652,  as,  worn  with 
fatigue,  and  wet  from  the  passage  of  the  sluggish  Con 
cord,  "  where  ford  there  was  none,"  they  wound  their  slow 
way  through  the  forest,  following  the  growing  murmur  of 
the  falls,  until  at  length  the  broad,  swift  river  stretched 
before  them,  its  white  spray  flashing  in  the  sun.  What 
cared  these  sturdy  old  Puritans  for  the  wild  beauty  of  the 
landscape  thus  revealed  before  them  ?  I  think  I  see  them 
standing  there  in  the  golden  light  of  a  closing  October 
day,  with  their  sombre  brown  doublets  and  slouched  hats, 
and  tlieir  heavy  matchlocks  —  such  men  as  Ireton  fronted 
death  with  on  the  battle  field  of  Naseby,  or  those  who 


328  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

stalked  with  Cromwell  over  the  broken  wall  of  Drogheda, 
smiting,  "  in  the  name  of  the  Lord,"  old  and  young,  "both 
maid,  and  little  children."  Methinks  I  see  the  sunset 
light  flooding  the  river  valley,  the  western  hills  stretching 
to  the  horizon,  overhung  with  trees  gorgeous  and  glowing 
with  the  tints  of  autumn  —  a  mighty  flower  garden, 
blossoming  under  the  spell  of  the  enchanter,  Frost;  the 
rushing  river,  with  its  graceful  water  curves  and  white 
foam ;  and  a  steady  murmur,  low,  deep  voices  of  water, 
the  softest,  sweetest  sound  of  Nature,  blends  with  the  sigh 
of  the  south  wind  in  the  pine  tops.  But  these  hard- 
featured  saints  of  the  New  Canaan  "care  for  none  of 
these  things."  The  stout  hearts  which  beat  under  their 
leathern  doublets  are  proof  against  the  sweet  influences  of 
Nature.  They  see  only  "  a  great  and  howling  wilderness, 
where  be  many  Indians,  but  where  fish  may  be  taken,  and 
where  be  meadows  for  ye  subsistence  of  cattle,"  and 
which,  on  the  whole,  "  is  a  comfortable  place  to  accom 
modate  a  company  of  God's  people  upon,  who  may,  with 
God's  blessing,  do  good  in  that  place  for  both  church  and 
state."  (Vide  petition  to  the  general  court,  1653.) 

In  reading  the  journals  and  narratives  of  the  early 
settlers  of  New  England,  nothing  is  more  remarkable 
than  the  entire  silence  of  the  worthy  writers  in  respect 
to  the  natural  beauty  or  grandeur  of  the  scenery  amid 
which  their  lot  was  cast.  They  designated  the  grand  and 


PATUCKET    FALLS.  329 

glorious  forest,  broken  by  lakes  and  crossed  by  great 
rivers,  intersected  by  a  thousand  streams  more  beautiful 
than  those  which  the  old  world  has  given  to  song  and 
romance,  as  "  a  desert  and  frightful  wilderness."  The 
wildly  picturesque  Indian,  darting  his  birch  canoe  down 
the  Falls  of  the  Amoskeag  or  gliding  in  the  deer  track  of 
the  forest,  was,  in  their  view,  nothing  but  a  "  dirty  tawnie," 
a  "  salvage  heathen,"  and  "  devil's  imp."  Many  of  them 
were  well  educated  —  men  of  varied  and  profound  erudi 
tion,  and  familiar  with  the  best  specimens  of  Greek  and 
Roman  literature ;  yet  they  seem  to  have  been  utterly 
devoid  of  that  poetic  feeling  or  fancy  whose  subtle  alchemy 
detects  the  beautiful  in  the  familiar.  Their  very  hymns 
and  spiritual  songs  seem  to  have  been  expressly  calcu 
lated,  like  "the  music  grinders"  of  Holmes, — 

"To  pluck  the  eyes  of  sentiment, 

And  dock  the  tail  of  rhyme, 
To  crack  the  voice  of  melody, 
And  break  the  legs  of  time." 

They  were  sworn  enemies  of  the  Muses ;  haters  of 
stage-play  literature,  profane  songs,  and  wanton  sonnets; 
of  every  thing,  in  brief,  which  reminded  them  of  the  days 
of  the  roistering  cavaliers  and  bedizened  beauties  of 
the  court  of  "the  man  Charles,"  whose  head  had.  fallen 
beneath  the  sword  of  Puritan  justice.  Hard,  harsh, 


330  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

unlovely,  yet  with  many  virtues  and  noble  points  of  char 
acter,  they  were  fitted  doubtless  for  their  work  of  pioneers 
in  the  wilderness.  Sternly  faithful  to  duty,  in  peril,  and 
suffering,  and  self-denial,  they  wrought  out  the  noblest  of 
historical  epics  on  the  rough  soil  of  New  England.  They 
lived  a  truer  poetry  than  Homer  or  Virgil  wrote. 

The  Patuckets,  once  a  powerful  native  tribe,  had  their 
principal  settlement  around  the  falls  at  the  time  of  the 
visit  of  the  white  men  of  Concord  and  Woburn  in  1652. 
Gookin,  the  Indian  historian,  states  that  this  tribe  was 
almost  wholly  destroyed  by  the  great  pestilence  of  1C12. 
In  1674  they  had  but  two  hundred  and  fifty  males  in  the 
whole  tribe.  Their  chief  sachem  lived  opposite  the  falls  ; 
and  it  was  in  his  wigwam  that  the  historian,  in  company 
with  John  Eliot,  the  Indian  missionary,  held  a  "  meeting 
for  worshippe  on  ye  5th  of  May,  1676,"  where  Mr.  Eliot 
preached  from  "  ye  twenty-second  of  Matthew." 

The  white  visitants  from  Concord  and  Woburn,  pleased 
with  the  appearance  of  the  place  and  the  prospect  it 
afforded  for  planting  and  fishing,  petitioned  the  general 
court  for  a  grant  of  the  entire  tract  of  *land  now  embraced 
in  the  limits  of  Lowell  and  Chelmsford.  They  made  no 
account  whatever  of  the  rights  of  the  poor  Patuckets ; 
but,  considering  it  "  a  comfortable  place  to  accommodate 
God's  people  upon,"  were  doubtless  prepared  to  deal  with 
the  heathen  inhabitants  as  Joshua  the  son  of  Nun  did  with 


PATUCKET    FALLS.  331 

the  Jebusites  and  Perizzites,  the  Hivites  and  the  Hittites, 
of  old.  The  Indians,  however,  found  a  friend  in  the 
apostle  Eliot,  who  presented  a  petition  in  their  behalf  that 
the  lands  lying  around  the  Patucket  and  Wamesit  Falls 
should  be  appropriated  exclusively  for  their  benefit  and 
use.  The  court  granted  the  petition  of  the  whites,  with 
the  exception  of  the  tract  in  the  angle  of  the  two  rivers 
on  which  the  Patuckets  were  settled.  The  Indian  title  to 
this  tract  was  not  finally  extinguished  until  1726,  when 
the  beautiful  name  of  Wamesit  was  lost  in  that  of  Chelms- 
ford,  and  the  last  of  the  Patuckets  turned  his  back  upon 
the  graves  of  his  fathers  and  sought  a  new  home  among 
the  strange  Indians  of  the  north. 

But  what  has  all  this  to  do  with  the  falls  ?  When 
the  rail  cars  came  thundering  through  his  lake  country, 
Wordsworth  attempted  to  exorcise  them  by  a  sonnet ;  and, 
were  I  not  a  very  decided  Yankee,  I  might  possibly  fol 
low  his  example,  and  utter  in  this  connection  my  protest 
against  the  desecration  of  Patucket  Falls,  and  battle  with 
objurgatory  stanzas  these  dams  and  mills,  as  Balma- 
whapple  shot  off  his  horse  pistol  at  Sterling  Castle.  Rocks 
and  trees,  rapids,  cascades,  and  other  waterworks  are  doubt 
less  all  very  well ;  but  on  the  whole,  considering  our  seven 
months  of  frost,  are  not  cotton  shirts  and  woollen  coats 
still  better?  As  for  the  spirits  of  the  river,  the  Merri- 
mac  Naiads,  or  whatever  may  be  their  name  in  Indian 


332  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

vocabulary,  they  have  no  good  reason  for  complaint ;  inas 
much  as  Nature,  in  marking  and  scooping  out  the  channel 
of  their  stream,  seems  to  have  had  an  eye  to  the  useful 
rather  than  the  picturesque.  After  a  few  preliminary 
antics  and  youthful  vagaries  up  among  the  White  Hills, 
the  Merrimac  comes  down  to  the  seaboard,  a  clear,  cheer 
ful,  hardworking  Yankee  river.  Its  numerous  falls  and 
rapids  are  such  as  seem  to  invite  the  engineer's  level 
rather  than  the  pencil  of  the  tourist ;  and  the  mason  who 
piles  up  the  huge  brick  fabrics  at  their  feet  is  seldom,  I 
suspect,  troubled  with  sentimental  remorse  or  poetical 
misgivings.  Staid  and  matter  of  fact  as  the  Merrimac  is, 
it  has,  nevertheless,  certain  capricious  and  eccentric  tribu 
taries  ;  the  Powwow,  for  instance,  with  its  eighty  feet  fall 
in  a  few  rods,  and  that  wild,  Indian-haunted  spickct,  taking 
its  well  nigh  perpendicular  leap  of  thirty  feet,  within  sight 
of  the  village  meeting  house,  kicking  up  its  pagan  heels, 
Sundays  and  all,  in  sheer  contempt  of  Puritan  tithing  men. 
This  latter  waterfall  is  now  somewhat  modified  by  the 
hand  of  art,  but  is  still,  as  Professor  Hitchcock's  Sceno- 
graphical  Geology  says  of  it,  "  an  object  of  no  little  inter 
est."  My  friend  T..  favorably  known  as  the  translator  of 
Undine  and  as  a  writer  of  fine  and  delicate  imagination, 
visited  Spicket  Falls  before  the  sound  of  a  hammer  or 
the  click  of  a  trowel  had  been  heard  beside  them.  His 
journal  of  A  Day  on  the  Merrimac  gives  a  pleasing  and 


PATUCKET    FALLS.  333 

vivid  description  of  their  original  appearance  as  viewed 
through  the  telescope  of  a  poetic  fancy.  The  readers  of 
Undine  will  thank  me  for  a  passage  or  two  from  this 
sketch :  — 

"  The  sound  of  the  waters  swells  more  deeply.  Some 
thing  supernatural  in  their  confused  murmur;  it  makes 
me  better  understand  and  sympathize  with  the  writer  of 
the  Apocalypse  when  he  speaks  of  the  voice  of  many 
waters,  heaping  image  upon  image,  to  impart  the  vigor  of 
his  conception. 

"  Through  yonder  elm  branches  I  catch  a  few  snowy 
glimpses  of  foam  in  the  air.  See  that  spray  and  vapor 
rolling  up  the  evergreen  on  my  left !  The  two  side  pre 
cipices,  one  hundred  feet  apart  and  excluding  objects  of 
inferior  moment,  darken  and  concentrate  the  view.  The 
waters  between  pour  over  the  right-hand  and  left-hand 
summit,  rushing  down  and  uniting  among  the  craggiest 
and  abruptest  of  rocks.  0  for  a  whole  mountain  side  of 
that  living  foam  !  The  sun  impresses  q,  faint  prismatic 
hue.  These  falls,  compared  with  those  of  the  Missouri, 
are  nothing  —  nothing  but  the  merest  miniature  ;  and  yet 
they  assist  me  in  forming  some  conception  of  that  glorious 
expanse. 

"  A  fragment  of  an  oak,  struck  off  by  lightning,  strug 
gles  with  the  current  midway  down ;  while  the  shattered 
trunk  frowns  above  the  desolation,  majestic  in  ruin.  This 


334  RECREATIONS   AND    MISCELLANIES. 

is  near  the  southern  cliff.  Farther  north  a  crag  rises  out 
of  the  stream,  its  upper  surface  covered  with  green  clover 
of  the  most  vivid  freshness.  Not  only  all  night,  but  all 
day,  has  the  dew  lain  upon  its  purity. 

"  With  my  eye  attaining  the  uppermost  margin,  where 
the  waters  shoot  over,  I  look  away  into  the  western  sky, 
and  discern  there  (what  you  least  expect)  a  cow  chewing 
her  cud  with  admirable  composure,  and  higher  up  several 
sheep  and  lambs  browsing  celestial  buds.  They  stand  on 
the  eminence  that  forms  the  background  of  my  present 
view.  The  illusion  is  extremely  picturesque  —  such  as 
Allston  himself  would  despair  of  producing.  l  Who  can 
paint  like  Nature  ? '  " 


HAMLET  AMONG  THE    GRAVES. 

AN  amiable  enthusiast,  immortal  in  his  beautiful  little 
romance  of  Paul  and  Virginia,  has  given  us  in  his  Mis 
cellanies  a  chapter  on  the  Pleasures  of  Tombs  —  a  title 
singular  enough,  yet  not  inappropriate ;  for  the  meek- 
spirited  and  sentimental  author  has  given,  in  his  own 
flowing  and  eloquent  language,  its  vindication.  "  There 
is,"  says  he,  "  a  voluptuous  melancholy  arising  from  the 
contemplation  of  tombs ;  the  result,  like  every  other  at 
tractive  sensation,  of  the  harmony  of  two  opposite  prin 
ciples  —  from  the  sentiment  of  our  fleeting  life  and  that 
of  our  immortality,  which  unite  in  view  of  the  last  habi 
tation  of  mankind.  A  tomb  is  a  monument  erected  on 
the  confines  of  two  worlds.  It  first  presents  to  us  the 
end  of  the  vain  disquietudes  of  life  and  the  image  of 
everlasting  repose  ;  it  afterwards  awakens  in  us  the  con 
fused  sentiment  of  a  blessed  immortality,  the  probabilities 
of  which  grow  stronger  and  stronger  in  proportion  as 
the  person  whose  memory  is  recalled  was  a  virtuous 
character. 

(335) 


336  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

"  It  is  from  this  intellectual  instinct,  therefore,  in  favor 
of  virtue,  that  the  tombs  of  great  men  inspire  us  with  a 
veneration  so  affecting.  From  the  same  sentiment,  too,  it 
is  that  those  which  contain  objects  that  have  been  lovely 
excite  so  much  pleasing  regret ;  for  the  attractions  of  love 
arise  entirely  out  of  the  appearances  of  virtue.  Hence 
it  is  that  we  are  moved  at  the  sight  of  the  small  hillock 
which  covers  the  ashes  of  an  infant,  from  the  recollection 
of  its  innocence  ;  hence  it  is  that  we  are  melted  into  ten 
derness  on  contemplating  the  tomb  in  which  is  laid  to 
repose  a  young  female,  the  delight  and  the  hope  of  her 
family  by  reason  of  her  virtues.  In  order  to  give  interest 
to  such  monuments,  there  is  no  need  of  bronzes,  marbles, 
and  gildings.  The  more  simple  they  are,  the  more  en 
ergy  they  communicate  to  the  sentiment  of  melancholy. 
They  produce  a  more  powerful  effect  when  poor  rather 
than  rich,  antique  rather  than  modern,  with  details  of 
misfortune  rather  than  titles  of  honor,  with  the  attributes 
of  virtue  rather  than  with  those  of  power.  It  is  in  the 
country  principally  that  their  impression  makes  itself  felt 
in  a  very  lively  manner.  A  simple,  unornamented  grave 
there  causes  more  tears  to  flow  than  the  gaudy  splendor 
of  a  cathedral  interment.  There  it  is  that  grief  assumes 
sublimity ;  it  ascends  with  the  aged  yews  in  the  church 
yard  ;  it  extends  with  the  surrounding  hills  and  plains ; 
it  allies  itself  with  all  the  effects  of  Nature  — with  the 


HAMLET  AMONG  THE  GRAVES.          337 

dawning  of  the  morning,  with  the  murmuring  of  the 
winds,  with  the  setting  of  the  sun,  and  with  the  darkness 
of  the  night." 

Not  long  since  I  took  occasion  to  visit  the  cemetery 
near  this  city.  It  is  a  beautiful  location  for  a  "  city  of 
the  dead  "  —  a  tract  of  some  forty  or  fifty  acres  on  the 
eastern  bank  of  the  Concord,  gently  undulating,  and  cov 
ered  with  a  heavy  growth  of  forest  trees,  among  which 
the  white  o'ak  is  conspicuous.  The  ground  beneath  has 
been  cleared  of  undergrowth,  and  is  marked  here  and 
there  with  monuments  and  railings  enclosing  "family 
lots."  It  is  a  quiet,  peaceful  spot ;  the  city,  with  its 
crowded  mills,  its  busy  streets  and  teeming  life,  is  hidden 
from  view  ;  not  even  a  solitary  farm  house  attracts  the 
eye.  All  is  still  and  solemn,  as  befits  the  place  where 
man  and  nature  lie  down  together ;  where  leaves  of  the 
great  life  tree,  shaken  down  by  death,  mingle  and  moulder 
with  the  frosted  foliage  of  the  autumnal  forest. 

Yet  the  contrast  of  busy  life  is  not  wanting.  The 
Lowell  and  Boston 'Railroad  crosses  the  river  within  view 
of  the  cemetery ;  and,  standing  there  in  the  silence  and 
shadow,  one  can  see  the  long  trains  rushing  along  their 
iron  pathway,  thronged  with  living,  breathing  humanity, 
—  the  young,  the  beautiful,  the  gay,  —  busy,  wealth- 
seeking  manhood  of  middle  years,  the  child  at  its  moth 
er's  knee,  the  old  man  with  whitened  hairs,  hurrying 
22 


338  RECREATIONS   AND    MISCELLANIES. 

on,  on,  —  car  after  car,  —  like  the  generations  of  man 
sweeping  over  the  track  of  time  to  their  last  still  resting- 
place. 

It  is  not  the  aged  and  the  sad  of  heart  who  make  this 
a  place  of  favorite  resort.  The  young,  the  buoyant,  the 
lighthearted  come  and  linger  among  these  flower-sown 
graves,  watching  the  sunshine  falling  in  broken  light  upon 
these  cold,  white  marbles,  and  listening  to  the  songs  of 
birds  in  these  leafy  recesses.  Beautiful  and  sweet  to  the 
young  heart  is  the  gentle  shadow  of  melancholy  which 
here  falls  upon  it,  soothing,  yet  sad  —  a  sentiment  mid 
way  between  joy  and  sorrow.  How  true  is  it,  that,  in 
the  language  of  Wordsworth,  — 

"  In  youth  we  love  the  darkling  lawn, 

Brushed  by  the  owlet's  wing ; 
Then  evening  is  preferred  to  dawn, 

And  autumn  to  the  spring. 
Sad  fancies  do  we  then  affect, 
In  luxury  of  disrespect 
To  our  own  prodigal  excess 
Of  too  familiar  happiness." 

The  Chinese,  from  the  remotest  antiquity,  have  adorned 
and  decorated  their  grave  grounds  with  shrubs  and  sweet 
flowers  as  places  of  popular  resort.  The  Turks  have  their 
graveyards  planted  with  trees,  through  which  the  sun 
looks  in  upon  the  turban  stones  of  the  faithful,  and 


HAMLET  AMONG  THE  GRAVES.         339 

beneath  which  the  relatives  of  the  dead  sit  in  cheerful 
converse  through  the  long  days  of  summer  in  all  the  lux 
urious  quiet  and  happy  indifference  of  the  indolent  East. 
Most  of  the  visitors  whom  I  met  at  the  Lowell  cemetery 
wore  cheerful  faces;  some  sauntered  laughingly  along, 
apparently  unaffected  by  the  associations  of  the  place ; 
too  full,  perhaps,  of  life,  and  energy,  and  high  hope  to 
apply  to  themselves  the  stern  and  solemn  lesson  which  is 
taught  even  by  these  flower-garlanded  mounds.  But,  for 
myself,  I  confess  that  I  am  always  awed  by  the  presence 
of  the  dead.  I  cannot  jest  above  the  gravestone.  My 
spirit  is  silenced  and  rebuked  before  the  tremendous 
mystery  of  which  the  grave  reminds  me,  and  involuntarily 

pays 

"The  deep  reverence  taught  of  old, 

The  homage  of  man's  heart  to  death." 

Even  Nature's  cheerful  air,  and  sun,  and  bird  voices  only 
serve  to  remind  me  that  there  are  those  beneath  who 
have  looked  on  the  same  green  leaves  and  sunshine,  felt 
the  same  soft  breeze  upon  their  cheeks,  and  listened  to 
the  same  wild  music  of  the  woods  for  the  last  time. 
Then,  too,  comes  the  saddening  reflection,  to  which  so 
many  have  given  expression,  that  these  trees  will  put 
forth  their  leaves,  the  slant  sunshine  still  fall  upon  green 
meadows  and  banks  of  flowers,  and  the  song  of  the  birds 
and  the  ripple  of  waters  still  be  heard  after  our  eyes 


340  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

and  ears  have  closed  forever.  It  is  hard  for  us  to  realize 
this.  "We  are  so  accustomed  to  look  upon  these  things 
as  a  part  of  our  life  environment  that  it  seems  strange 
that  they  should  survive  us.  Tennyson,  in  his  exquisite 
metaphysical  poem  of  the  Two  Voices,  has  given  utter 
ance  to  this  sentiment :  — 

"  Alas  !  though  I  should  die,  I  know 
That  all  about  the  thorn  will  blow 
In  tufts  of  rosy-tinted  snow. 

Not  less  the  bee  will  range  her  cells, 
The  furzy  prickle  fire  the  dells, 
The  foxglove  cluster  dappled  bells." 

"  THE  PLEASURES  OF  THE  TOMBS  !  "  Undoubtedly, 
in  the  language  of  the  Idumean  seer,  there  are  many  who 
"  rejoice  exceedingly  and  are  glad  when  they  can  find  the 
grave,"  who  long  for  it  "  as  the  servant  earnestly  desireth 
the  shadow."  Rest,  rest  to  the  sick  heart  and  the  weary 
brain,  to  the  long  afflicted  and  the  hopeless  —  rest  on  the 
calm  bosom  of  our  common  mother.  Welcome  to  the 
tired  ear,  stunned  and  confused  with  life's  jarring  dis 
cords,  the  everlasting  silence ;  grateful  to  the  weary  eyes 
which  "have  seen  evil,  and  not  good,"  the  everlasting 
shadow. 

Yet  over  all  hangs  the  curtain  of  a  deep  mystery  —  a 
curtain  lifted  only  on  one  side  by  the  hands  of  those  who 


HAMLET  AMONG  THE  GRAVES.          341 

are  passing  under  its  solemn  shadow.  No  voice  speaks 
to  us  from  beyond  it,  telling  of  the  unknown  state  ;  no 
hand  from  within  puts  aside  the  dark  drapery  to  reveal 
the  mysteries  towards  which  we  are  all  moving.  "  Man 
giveth  up  the  ghost ;  and  where  is  he  ? " 

Thanks  to  our  heavenly  Father,  he  has  not  left  us 
altogether  without  an  answer  to  this  momentous  ques 
tion.  Over  the  blackness  of  darkness  a  light  is  shining. 
The  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death  is  no  longer  "  a  land 
of  darkness  and  where  the  light  is  as  darkness."  The 
presence  of  a  serene  and  holy  life  pervades  it.  Above  its 
pale  tombs  and  crowded  burial-places,  above  the  wail  of 
despairing  humanity,  the  voice  of  Him  who  awakened 
life  and  beauty  beneath  the  graveclothes  of  the  tomb  at 
Bethany  is  heard  proclaiming,  "  I  AM  THE  RESURREC 
TION  AND  THE  LIFE."  We  know  not,  it  is  true,  the 
conditions  of  our  future  life  ;  we  know  not  what  it  is  to 
pass  from  this  state  of  being  to  another ;  but  before  us 
in  that  dark  passage  has  gone  the  Man  of  Nazareth,  and 
the  light  of  his  footsteps  lingers  in  the  path.  Where  he, 
our  Brother  in  his  humanity,  our  Redeemer  in  his  divine 
nature,  has  gone,  let  us  not  fear  to  follow.  He  who  or- 
dereth  all  aright  will  uphold  with  his  own  great  arm  the 
frail  spirit  when  its  incarnation  is  ended ;  and  it  may  be, 
that,  in  language  which  I  have  elsewhere  used,  — 


342  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 


when  Time's  veil  shall  fall  asunder, 


The  soul  may  know 
No  fearful  change  nor  sudden  wonder, 
Nor  sink  the  weight  of  mystery  under, 
But  with  the  upward  rise  and  with  the  vastness  grow. 

And  all  we  shrink  from  now  may  seem 

No  new  revealing ; 
Familiar  as  our  childhood's  stream, 
Or  pleasant  memory  of  a  dream, 
The  loved  and  cherished  past  upon  the  new  life  stealing. 

Serene  and  mild  the  untried  light 

May  have  its  dawning  ; 
As  meet  in  summer's  northern  night 
The  evening  gray  and  dawning  white, 
The  sunset  hues  of  Time  blend  with  the  soul's  new  morning. 


YANKEE    GYPSIES. 

"  Here's  to  budgets,  packs,  and  wallets  ; 
Here's  to  all  the  wandering  train."  — Burns. 

I  CONFESS  it,  I  am  keenly  sensitive  to  "skyey  influ 
ences."  I  profess  no  indifference  to  the  movements  of 
that  capricious  old  gentleman  known  as  the  clerk  of  the 
weather.  I  cannot  conceal  my  interest  in  the  behavior 
of  that  patriarchal  bird  whose  wooden  similitude  gyrates 
on  the  church  spire.  Winter  proper  is  well  enough. 
Let  the  thermometer  go  to  zero  if  it  will ;  so  much  the 
better,  if  thereby  the  very  winds  are  frozen  and  unable 
to  flap  their  stiff  wings.  Sounds  of  bells  in  the  keen  air, 
clear,  musical,  heart-inspiring ;  quick  tripping  of  fair 
moccasoned  feet  on  glittering  ice  pavements  ;  bright  eyes 
glancing  above  the  uplifted  muff  like  a  sultana's  behind 
the  folds  of  her  yashmack ;  schoolboys  coasting  down 
street  like  mad  Greenlanders ;  the  cold  brilliance  of 
oblique  sunbeams  flashing  back  from  wide  surfaces  of  glit 
tering  snow  or  blazing  upon  ice  jewelry  of  tree  and  roof. 
There  is  nothing  in  all  this  to  complain  of.  A  storm  of 

(343) 


344  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

summer  has  its  redeeming  sublimities  —  its  slow,  up 
heaving  mountains  of  cloud  glooming  in  the  western 
horizon  like  new-created  volcanoes,  veined  with  fire,  shat 
tered  by  exploding  thunders.  Even  the  wild  gales  of 
the  equinox  have  their  varieties  —  sounds  of  wind-shaken 
woods  and  waters,  creak  and  clatter  of  sign  and  casement, 
hurricane  puffs  and  down-rushing  rainspouts.  But  this 
dull,  dark  autumn  day  of  thaw  and  rain,  when  the  very 
clouds  seem  too  spiritless  and  languid  to  storm  outright 
or  take  themselves  out  of  the  way  of  fair  weather ;  wet 
beneath  and  above,  reminding  one  of  that  rayless  atmos 
phere  of  Dante's  Third  Circle,  where  the  infernal  Pries- 
nitz  administers  his  hydropathic  torment  — 

"A  heavy,  cursed,  and  relentless  drench — 
The  land  it  soaks  is  putrid ;  " 

or  rather,  as  every  thing,  animate  and  inanimate,  is  seeth 
ing  in  warm  mist,  suggesting  the  idea  that  Nature,  grown 
old  and  rheumatic,  is  trying  the  efficacy  of  a  Thompsonian 
steam  box  on  a  grand  scale ;  no  sounds  save  the  heavy 
plash  of  muddy  feet  on  the  pavements ;  the  monotonous, 
melancholy  drip  from  trees  and  roofs;  the  distressful 
gurgling  of  water  ducts,  swallowing  the  dirty  amalgam  of 
the  gutters  ;  a  dim,  leaden-colored  horizon  of  only  a  few 
yards  in  diameter,  shutting  down  about  one,  beyond  which 
nothing  is  visible  save  in  faint  line  or  dark  projection  ;  the 


YANKEE    GYPSIES.  34J 

ghost  of  a  church  spire  or  the  eidolon  of  a  chimney  pot. 
He  who  can  extract  pleasurable  emotions  from  the  alem 
bic  of  such  a  day  has  a  trick  of  alchemy  with  which  I 
am  wholly  unacquainted. 

Hark  !  a  rap  at  niy  door.  Welcome  any  body  just 
now.  One  gains  nothing  by  attempting  to  shut  out  the 
sprites  of  the  weather.  They  come  in  at  the  keyhole ; 
they  peer  through  the  dripping  panes;  they  insinuate 
themselves  through  the  crevices  of  the  casement,  or  plump 
down  chimney  astride  of  the  raindrops. 

I  rise  and  throw  open  the  door.  A  tall,  shambling, 
loose-jointed  figure ;  a  pinched,  shrewd  face,  sunbrown 
and  wind  dried ;  small,  quick-winking  black  eyes.  There 
he  stands,  the  water  dripping  from  his  pulpy  hat  and 
ragged  elbows. 

I  speak  to  him ;  but  he  returns  no  answer.  With  a 
dumb  show  of  misery  quite  touching  he  hands  me  a 
soiled  piece  of  parchment,  whereon  I  read  what  purports 
to  be  a  melancholy  account  of  shipwreck  and  disaster,  to 
the  particular  detriment,  loss,  and  damnification  of  one 
Pietro  Frugoni,  who  is,  in  consequence,  sorely  in  want 
of  the  alms  of  all  charitable  Christian  persons,  and  who 
is,  in  short,  the  bearer  of  this  veracious  document,  duly 
certified  and  indorsed  by  an  Italian  consul  in  one  of  our 
Atlantic  cities,  of  a  high-sounding,  but  to  Yankee  organs 
unpronounceable,  name.  * 


346  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

Here  commences  a  struggle.  Every  man,  the  Ma 
hometans  tell  us,  has  two  attendant  angels  —  the  good  one 
on  his  right  shoulder,  the  bad  on  his  left.  "  Give/'  says 
Benevolence,  as  with  some  difficulty  I  fish  up  a  small 
coin  from  the  depths  of  my  pocket.  "  Not  a  cent,"  says 
selfish  Prudence ;  and  I  drop  it  from  my  fingers.  "  Think," 
says  the  good  angel,  "  of  the  poor"  stranger  in  a  strange 
land,  just  escaped  from  the  terrors  of  the  sea  storm,  in 
which  his  little  property  has  perished,  thrown  half  naked 
and  helpless  on  our  shores,  ignorant  of  our  language,  and 
unable  to  find  employment  suited  to  his  capacity."  "A 
vile  impostor  ! "  replies  the  left-hand  sentinel.  "  His  paper, 
purchased  from  one  of  those  ready  writers  in  New  York 
who  manufacture  beggar  credentials  at  the  low  price  of 
one  dollar  per  copy,  with  earthquakes,  fires,  or  ship 
wrecks,  to  suit  customers." 

Amidst  this  confusion  of  tongues  I  take  another  survey 
of  my  visitant.  Ha!  a  light  dawns  upon  me.  That 
shrewd,  old  face,  with  its  sharp,  winking  eyes,  is  no 
stranger  to  me.  Pietro  Frugoni,  I  have  seen  thee  be 
fore.  Si,  signer,  that  face  of  thine  has  looked  at  me 
over  a  dirty  white  neckcloth,  with  the  corners  of  that 
cunning  mouth  drawn  downwards,  and  those  small  eyes 
turned  up  in  sanctimonious  gravity,  while  thou  wast  offer 
ing  to  a  crowd  of  half-grown  boys  an  extemporaneous 
exhortation  in  the  capacity  of  a  travelling  preacher. 


YANKEE    GYPSIES.  347 

Have  I  not  seen  it  peering  out  from  under  a  blanket,  as 
that  of  a  poor  Penobscot  Indian,  who  had  lost  the  use  of 
his  hands  while  trapping  on  the  Madawaska?  Is  it  not 
the  face  of  the  forlorn  father  of  six  small  children,  whom 
the  "marcury  doctors"  had  "pisened"  and  crippled? 
Did  it  not  belong  to  that  down-east  unfortunate  who  had 
been  out  to  the  "  Genesee  country  "  and  got  the  "  fevern- 
nager,"  and  whose  hand  shook  so  pitifully  when  held  out 
to  receive  my  poor  gift  ?  The  sarne;  under  all  disguises 
—  Stephen  Leathers,  of  Barrington  —  him,  and  none 
other!  Let  me  conjure  him  into  his  own  likeness:  — 
"  Well,  Stephen,  what  news  from  old  Barrington  ?  " 
"O,  well  I  thought  I  knew  ye,"  he  answers,  not  the 
least  disconcerted.  "  How  do  you  do  ?  and  how's  your 
folks  ?  All  well,  I  hope.  I  took  this  'ere  paper,  you  see, 
to  help  a  poor  furriner,  who  couldn't  make  himself  under 
stood  any  more  than  a  wild  goose.  I  thought  I'd  just 
start  him  for'ard  a  little.  It  seemed  a  marcy  to  do  it." 

Well  and  shiftily  answered,  thou  ragged  Proteus.  One 
cannot  be  angry  with  such  a  fellow.  I  will  just  inquire 
into  the  present  state  of  his  gospel  mission  and  about  the 
condition  of  his  tribe  on  the  Penobscot ;  and  it  may  be 
not  amiss  to  congratulate  him  on  the  success  of  the  steam 
doctors  in  sweating  the  "  pisen  "  of  the  regular  faculty  out 
of  him.  But  he  evidently  has  no  wish  to  enter  into  idle 
conversation.  Intent  upon  his  benevolent  errand,  he  is 


348  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

already  clattering  down  stairs.  Involuntarily  I  glance  out 
of  the  window  just  in  season  to  catch  a  single  glimpse  of 
him  ere  he  is  swallowed  up  in  the  mist. 

He  has  gone ;  and,  knave  as  he  is,  I  can  hardly  help 
exclaiming,  "  Luck  go  with  him  ! "  He  has  broken  in 
upon  the  sombre  train  of  my  thoughts  and  called  up  be 
fore  me  pleasant  and  grateful  recollections.  The  old 
farm  house  nestling  in  its  valley;  hills  stretching  off  to 
the  south  and  green  meadows  to  the  east;  the  small 
stream  which  came  noisily  down  its  ravine,  washing  the 
old  garden  wall  and  softly  lapping  on  fallen  stones  and 
mossy  roots  of  beeches  and  hemlocks ;  the  tall  sentinel 
poplars  at  the  gateway;  the  oak  forest,  sweeping  un 
broken  to  the  northern  horizon ;  the  grass  grown  car 
riage  path,  with  its  rude  and  crazy  bridge,  —  the  dear 
old  landscape  of  my  boyhood  lies  outstretched  before  me 
like  a  daguerreotype  from  that  picture  within  which  I 
have  borne  with  me  in  all  my  wanderings.  I  am  a  boy 
again,  once  more  conscious  of  the  feeling,  half  terror, 
half  exultation,  with  which  I  used  to  announce  the  ap 
proach  of  this  very  vagabond  and  his  "  kindred  after 
the  flesh." 

The  advent  of  wandering  beggars,  or  "  old  stragglers," 
as  we  were  wont  to  call  them,  was  an  event  of  no  ordinary 
interest  in  the  generally  monotonous  quietude  of  our  farm 
life.  Many  of  them  were  well  known ;  they  had  their 


YANKEE    GYPSIES.  349 

periodical  revolutions  and  transits ;  we  could  calculate 
them  like  eclipses  or  new  moons.  Some  were  sturdy 
knaves,  fat  and  saucy ;  and,  whenever  they  ascertained 
that  the  "men  folks"  were  absent,  would  order  provisions 
and  cider  like  men  who  expected  to  pay  for  it,  seating 
themselves  at  the  hearth  or  table  with  the  air  of  Falstaff — 
"  Shall  I  not  take  mine  ease  in  mine  own  inn  ?  "  Others, 
poor,  pale,  patient,  like  Sterne's  monk,  came  creeping  up 
to  the  door,  hat  in  hand,  standing  there  in  their  gray 
wretchedness  with  a  look  of  heartbreak  and  forlornness 
which  was  never  without  its  effect  on  our  juvenile  sen 
sibilities.  At  times,  however,  we  experienced  a  slight 
revulsion  of  feeling  when  even  these  humblest  children 
of  sorrow  somewhat  petulantly  rejected  our  proffered 
bread  and  cheese,  and  demanded  instead  a  glass  of  cider. 
Whatever  the  temperance  society  might  in  such  cases 
have  done,  it  was  not  in  our  hearts  to  refuse  the  poor 
creatures  a  draught  of  their  favorite  beverage ;  and  wasn't 
it  a  satisfaction  to  see  their  sad,  melancholy  faces  light 
up  as  we  handed  them  the  full  pitcher,  and,  on  receiving 
it  back  empty  from  their  brown,  wrinkled  hands,  to  hear 
them,  half  breathless  from  their  long,  delicious  draught, 
thanking  us  for  the  favor,  as  "  dear,  good  children  " !  Not 
unfrequently  these  wandering  tests  of  our  benevolence 
made  their  appearance  in  interesting  groups  of  man,  wo 
man,  and  child,  picturesque  in  their  squalidness,  and  man- 


350  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

ifesting  a  maudlin  affection  which  would  have  done  honor 
to  the  revellers  at  Poosie-Nansie's,  immortal  in  the  can 
tata  of  Burns.  I  remember  some  who  were  evidently 
the  victims  of  monomania  —  haunted  and  hunted  by  some 
dark  thought — possessed  by  a  fixed  idea.  One,  a  black- 
eyed,  wild-haired  woman,  with  a  whole  tragedy  of  sin, 
shame.,  and  suffering  written  in  her  countenance,  used 
often  to  visit  us,  warm  herself  by  our  winter  fire,  and 
supply  herself  with  a  stock  of  cakes  and  cold  meat;  but 
was  never  known  to  answer  a  question  or  to  ask  one. 
She  never  smiled ;  the  cold,  stony  look  of  her  eye  never 
changed ;  a  silent,  impassive  face,  frozen  rigid  by  some 
great  wrong  or  sin.  We  used  to  look  with  awe  upon  the 
"still  woman,"  and  think  of  the  demoniac  of  Scripture 
who  had  a  "dumb  spirit." 

One  —  I  think  I  see  him  now,  grim,  gaunt,  and 
ghastly,  working  his  slow  way  up  to  our  door  —  used  to 
gather  herbs  by  the  wayside  and  call  himself  doctor. 
He  was  bearded  like  a  he  goat  and  used  to  counterfeit 
lameness,  yet,  when  he  supposed  himself  alone,  would 
travel  on  lustily  as  if  walking  for  a  wager.  At  length,  as 
if  in  punishment  of  his  deceit,  he  met  with  an  accident  in 
his  rambles  and  became  lame  in  earnest,  hobbling  ever 
after  with  difficulty  on  his  gnarled  crutches.  Another 
used  to  go  stooping,  like  Bunyan's  pilgrim,  under  a  pack 
made  of  an  old  bed  sacking,  stuffed  out  into  most  plethoric 


YANKEE    GYPSIES.  351 

dimensions,  tottering  on  a  pair  of  small,  meagre  legs,  and 
peering  out  with  his  wild,  hairy  face  from  under  his 
burden  like  a  big-bodied  spider.  That  "man  with  the 
pack"  always  inspired  me  with  awe  and  reverence. 
Huge,  almost  sublime,  in  its  tense  rotundity,  the  father 
of  all  packs,  never  laid  aside  and  never  opened,  what 
might  there  not  be  within  it?  With  what  flesh-creeping 
curiosity  I  used  to  walk  round  about  it  at  a  safe  distance, 
half  expecting  to  see  its  striped  covering  stirred  by  the 
motions  of  a  mysterious  life,  or  that  some  evil  monster 
would  leap  out  of  it,  like  robbers  from  Ali  Baba's  jars  or 
armed  men  from  the  Trojan  horse  ! 

There  was  another  class  of  peripatetic  philosophers  — 
half  peddler,  half  mendicant  —  who  were  in  the  habit  of 
visiting  us.  One  we  recollect,  a  lame,  unshaven,  sinister- 
eyed,  unwholesome  fellow,  with  his  basket  of  old  news 
papers  and  pamphlets,  and  his  tattered  blue  umbrella, 
serving  rather  as  a  walking  staff  than  as  a  protection  from 
the  rain.  He  told  us  on  one  occasion,  in  answer  to  our 
inquiring  into  the  cause  of  his  lameness,  that  when  a  young 
man  he  was  employed  on  the  farm  of  the  chief  magistrate 
of  a  neighboring  state  ;  where,  as  his  ill  luck  would  have  it, 
the  governor's  handsome  daughter  fell  in  love  with  him. 
He  was  caught  one  day  in  the  young  lady's  room  by  her 
father;  whereupon  the  irascible  old  gentleman  pitched  him 
unceremoniously  out  of  the  window,  laming  him  for  life,  on 


352  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

the  brick  pavement  below,  like  Vulcan  on  the  rocks  of 
Lemnos.  As  for  the  lady,  he  assured  us  "  she  took  on 
dreadfully  about  it."  "  Did  she  die  ?  "  we  inquired  anx 
iously.  There  was  a  cumiing  twinkle  in  the  old  rogue's 
eye  as  he  responded,  "  Well,  no,  she  didn't.  She  got 
married." 

Twice  a  year,  usually  in  the  spring  and  autumn,  we 
were  honored  with  a  call  from  Jonathan  Plummer,  maker 
of  verses,  peddler  and  poet,  physician  and  parson,  —  a  Yan 
kee  troubadour,  —  first  and  last  minstrel  of  the  valley  of 
the  Merrimac,  encircled,  to  my  wondering  young  eyes, 
with  the  very  nimbus  of  immortality.  He  brought  with 
him  pins,  needles,  tape,  and  cotton  thread  for  my  mother ; 
jackknives,  razors,  and  soap  for  my  father  ;  and  verses  of 
his  own  composing,  coarsely  printed  and  illustrated  with 
rude  woodcuts,  for  the  delectation  of  the  younger  branches 
of  the  family.  No  lovesick  youth  could  drown  himself, 
no  deserted  maiden  bewail  the  moon,  no  rogue  mount  the 
gallows  without  fitting  memorial  in  Plummer's  verses. 
Earthquakes,  fires,  fevers,  and  shipwrecks  he  regarded  as 
personal  favors  from  Providence,  furnishing  the  raw  ma 
terial  of  song  and  ballad.  Welcome  to  us  in  our  country 
seclusion  as  Autolycus  to  the  clown  in  Winter's  Tale,  we 
listened  with  infinite  satisfaction  to  his  readings  of  his  own 
verses,  or  to  his  ready  improvisation  upon  some  domestic 
incident  or  topic  suggested  by  his  auditors.  When  once 


YANKEE    GYPSIES.  353 

fairly  over  the  difficulties  at  the  outset  of  a  new  subject 
his  rhymes  flowed  freely,  "  as  if  he  had  eaten  ballads  and 
all  men's  ears  grew  to  his  tunes."  His  productions  an 
swered,  as  nearly  as  I  can  remember,  to  Shakspeare's 
description  of  a  proper  ballad  —  "  doleful  matter  merrily 
set  down,  or  a  very  pleasant  theme  sung  lamentably.'* 
He  was  scrupulously  conscientious,  devout,  inclined  to 
theological  disquisitions,  and  withal  mighty  in  Scripture. 
He  was  thoroughly  independent ;  flattered  nobody,  cared 
for  nobody,  trusted  nobody.  When  invited  to  sit  down 
at  our  dinner  table,  he  invariably  took  the  precaution  to 
place  his  basket  of  valuables  between  his  legs  for  safe 
keeping.  "  Never  mind  thy  basket,  Jonathan,"  said  my 
father ;  "  we  sha'n't  steal  thy  verses."  "  I'm  not  sure 
of  that,"  returned  the  suspicious  guest.  "It  is  written, 
'  Trust  ye  not  in  any  brother.'  " 

Thou  too,  0  Parson  B.,  —  with  thy  pale  student's  brow 
and  rubicund  nose,  with  thy  rusty  and  tattered  black 
coat  overswept  by  white,  flowing  locks,  with  thy  profes 
sional  white  neckcloth  scrupulously  preserved  when  even 
a  shirt  to  thy  back  was  problematical,  —  art  by  no  means 
to  be  overlooked  in  the  muster  roll  of  vagrant  gentlemen 
possessing  the  entree  of  our  farm  house.  Well  do  we  re 
member  with  what  grave  and  dignified  courtesy  he  used 
to  step  over  its  threshold,  saluting  its  inmates  with  the 
same  air  of  gracious  condescension,  and  patronage  with 
23 


354  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

which  in  better  days  he  had  delighted  the  hearts  of  his 
parishioners.  Poor  old  man !  He  had  once  been  the 
admired  and  almost  worshipped  minister  of  the  largest 
Church  in  the  town  where  he  afterwards  found  support  in 
the  winter  season  as  a  pauper.  He  had  early  fallen  into 
intemperate  habits ;  and  at  the  age  of  threescore  and  ten, 
when  I  remember  him,  he  was  only  sober  when  he  lacked 
the  means  of  being  otherwise.  Drunk  or  sober,  however, 
Le  never  altogether  forgot  the  proprieties  of  his  profes 
sion  ;  he  was  always  grave,  decorous,  and  gentlemanly ; 
he  held  fast  the  form  of  sound  words,  and  the  weakness 
of  the  flesh  abated  nothing  of  the  rigor  of  his  stringent 
theology.  He  had  been  a  favorite  pupil  of  the  learned 
and  astute  Emmons,  and  was  to  the  last  a  sturdy  defender 
of  the  peculiar  dogmas  of  his  school.  The  last  time  we 
saw  him  he  was  holding  a  meeting  in  our  district  school 
house,  with  a  vagabond  peddler  for  deacon  and  travelling 
companion.  The  tie  which  united  the  ill-assorted  couple 
was  doubtless  the  same  which  endeared  Tarn  O'Shanter 
to  the  souter : — 

"  They  had  been  fou  for  weeks  thegither." 

He  took  for  his  text  the  first  seven  verses  of  the  con 
cluding  chapter  of  Ecclesiastes,  furnishing  in  himself 
its  fitting  illustration.  The  evil  days  had  come ;  the 
keepers  of  the  house  trembled ;  the  windows  of  life  were 


YANKEE    GYPSIES.  355 

darkened.  A  few  months  later  the  silver  cord  was  loo 
sened,  the  golden  bowl  was  broken,  and  between  the  poor 
old  man  and  the  temptations  which  beset  him  fell  the 
thick  curtains  of  the  grave. 

One  day  we  had  a  call  from  a  "  pawky  auld  carle  "  of 
a  wandering  Scotchman.  To  him  I  owe  my  first  intro 
duction  to  the  songs  of  Burns.  After  eating  his  bread 
and  cheese  and  drinking  his  mug  of  cider  he  gave  us 
Bonnie  Doon,  Highland  Mary,  and  Auld  Lang  Syne. 
He  had  a  rich,  full  voice,  and  entered  heartily  into  the 
spirit  of  his  lyrics.  I  have  since  listened  to  the  same 
melodies  from  the  lips  of  Dempster,  (than  whom  the 
Scottish  bard  has  had  no  sweeter  or  truer  interpreter ;) 
but  the  skilful  performance  of  the  artist  lacked  the  novel 
charm  of  the  gaberlunzie's  singing  in  the  old  farm-house 
kitchen.  Another  wanderer  made  us  acquainted  with  the 
humorous  old  ballad  of  "Our  gude  man  cam  hame  at. 
e'en."  He  applied  for  supper  and  lodging,  and  the  next 
morning  was  set  at  work  splitting  stones  in  the  pas 
ture.  While  thus  engaged  the  village  doctor  came  riding 
along  the  highway  on  his  fine,  spirited  horse,  and  stopped 
to  talk  with  my  father.  The  fellow  eyed  the  animal  at 
tentively,  as  if  familiar  with  all  his  good  points,  and 
hummed  over  a  stanza  of  the  old  poem :  — 

"  Our  gude  man  cam  hame  at  e'en. 
And  hame  cam  he  ; 


356  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

And  there  he  saw  a  saddle  horse 

Where  nae  horse  should  be. 
'  How  cam  this  horse  here  ? 

How  can  it  be  ? 
How  cam  this  horse  here 

Without  the  leave  of  me  ? ' 
1  A  horse  ? '  quo  she. 
'  Ay,  a  horse,'  quo  he. 
'  Ye  auld  fool,  ye  blind  fool,  — 

And  blinder  might  ye  be,  — 
'Tis  naething  but  a  milking  cow 

My  mamma  sent  to  me.' 
'  A  milch  cow  ? '  quo  he. 
*  Ay,  a  milch  cow,'  quo  she. 
«  Weel,  far  hae  I  ridden, 

And  muckle  hae  I  seen  ; 
But  milking  cows  wi*  saddles  on 

Saw  I  never  nane.'  " 

That  very  night  the  rascal  decamped,  taking  with 
him  the  doctor's  horse,  and  was  never  after  heard  of. 

Often,  in  the  gray  of  the  morning,  we  used  to  see  one 
or  more  "  gaberlunzie  men,"  pack  on  shoulder  and  staff 
in  hand,  emerging  from  the  barn  or  other  out  buildings 
where  they  had  passed  the  night.  I  was  once  sent  to  the 
barn  to  fodder  the  cattle  late  in  the  evening,  and,  climb 
ing  into  the  mow  to  pitch  down  hay  for  that  purpose,  I 
was  startled  by  the  sudden  apparition  of  a  man  rising  up 
before  me,  just  discernible  in  the  dim  moonlight  streaming 


YANKEE    GYPSIES.  357 

through  the  seams  of  the  boards.  I  made  a  rapid  re 
treat  down  the  ladder ;  and  was  only  reassured  by  hear 
ing  the  object  of  my  terror  calling  after  me,  and  recog 
nizing  his  voice  as  that  of  a  harmless  old  pilgrim  whom 
I  had  known  before.  Our  farm  house  was  situated  in  a 
lonely  valley,  half  surrounded  with  woods,  with  no  neigh 
bors  in  sight.  One  dark,  cloudy  night,  when  our  parents 
chanced  to  be  absent,  we  were  sitting  with  our  aged 
grandmother  in  the  fading  light  of  the  kitchen  fire,  work 
ing  ourselves  into  a  very  satisfactory  state  of  excitement 
and  terror  by  recounting  to  each  other  all  the  dismal 
stories  we  could  remember  of  ghosts,  witches,  haunted 
houses,  and  robbers,  when  we  were  suddenly  startled  by 
a  loud  rap  at  the  door.  A  stripling  of  fourteen,  I  was 
very  naturally  regarded  as  the  head  of  the  household ;  so, 
with  many  misgivings,  I  advanced  to  the  door,  which  I 
slowly  opened,  holding  the  candle  tremulously  above  my 
head  and  peering  out  into  the  darkness.  The  feeble  glim 
mer  played  upon  the  apparition  of  a  gigantic  horseman, 
mounted  on  a  steed  of  a  size  worthy  of  such  a  rider  — 
colossal,  motionless,  like  images  cut  out  of  the  solid  night. 
The  strange  visitant  gruffly  saluted  me  ;  and,  after  making 
several  ineffectual  efforts  to  urge  his  horse  in  at  the  door, 
dismounted  and  followed  me  into  the  room,  evidently  en 
joying  the  terror  which  his  huge  presence  excited.  An 
nouncing  himself  as  the  great  Indian  doctor,  he  drew 


358  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

himself  up  before  the  fire,  stretched  his  arms,  clinched 
his  fists,  struck  his  broad  chest,  and  invited  our  attention 
to  what  he  called  his  "  mortal  frame."  He  demanded  in 
succession  all  kinds  of  intoxicating  liquors ;  and,  on  being 
assured  that  we  had  none  to  give  him,  he  grew  angry, 
threatened  to  swallow  my  younger  brother  alive,  and, 
seizing  me  by  the  hair  of  my  head  as  the  angel  did  the 
prophet  at  Babylon,  led  me  about  from  room  to  room. 
After  an  ineffectual  search,  in  the  course  of  which  he  mis 
took  a  jug  of  oil  for  one  of  brandy,  and,  contrary  to  my 
explanations  and  remonstrances,  insisted  upon  swallowing 
a  portion  of  its  contents,  he  released  me,  fell  to  crying  and 
sobbing,  and  confessed  that  he  was  so  drunk  already  that 
his  horse  was  ashamed  of  him.  After  bemoaning  and 
pitying  himself  to  his  satisfaction  he  wiped  his  eyes,  and  sat 
down  by  the  side  of  my  grandmother,  giving  her  to  under 
stand  that  he  was  very  much  pleased  with  her  appearance ; 
adding,  that,  if  agreeable  to  her,  he  should  like  the  privi 
lege  of  paying  his  addresses  to  her.  While  vainly  en 
deavoring  to  make  the  excellent  old  lady  comprehend  his 
very  flattering  proposition  he  was  interrupted  by  the 
return  of  my  father,  who,  at  once  understanding  the  mat 
ter,  turned  him  out  of  doors  without  ceremony. 

On  one  occasion,  a  few  years  ago,  on  my  return  from 
the  field  at  evening,  I  was  told  that  a  foreigner  had  asked 
for  lodgings  during  the  night,  but  that,  influenced  by  his 


YANKEE    GYPSIES.  359 

dark,  repulsive  appearance,  my  mother  had  very  reluc 
tantly  refused  his  request.  I  found  her  by  no  means 
satisfied  with  her  decision.  "  What  if  a  son  of  mine  was 
in  a  strange  land  ? "  she  inquired,  self-reproachfully. 
Greatly  to  her  relief,  I  volunteered  to  go  in  pursuit  of  the 
wanderer,  and,  taking  a  crosspath  over  the  fields,  soon 
overtook  him.  He  had  just  been  rejected  at  the  house  of 
our  nearest  neighbor,  and  was  standing  in  a  state  of 
dubious  perplexity  in  the  street.  His  looks  quite  justified 
my  mother's  suspicions.  He  was  an  olive-complexioned, 
black-bearded  Italian,  with  an  eye  like  a  live  coal,  such 
a  face  as  perchance  looks  out  on  the  traveller  in  the 
passes  of  the  Abruzzi  —  one  of  those  bandit  visages  which 
Salvator  has  painted.  With  some  difficulty  I  gave  him 
to  understand  my  errand,  when  he  overwhelmed  me  with 
thanks  and  joyfully  followed  me  back.  He  took  his  seat 
with  us  at  the  supper  table ;  and,  when  we  were  all  gath 
ered  around  the  hearth  that  cold  autumnal  evening,  he 
told  us,  partly  by  words  and  partly  by  gestures,  the  story 
of  his  life  and  misfortunes,  amused  us  with  descriptions  of 
the  grape  gatherings  and  festivals  of  his  sunny  clime, 
edified  my  mother  with  a  recipe  for  making  bread  of 
chestnuts ;  and  in  the  morning,  when,  after  breakfast,  his 
dark,  sullen  face  lighted  up  and  his  fierce  eye  moistened 
with  grateful  emotion  as  in  his  own  silvery  Tuscan  accent 
he  poured  out  his  thanks,  we  marvelled  at  the  fears  which 


360  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

had  so  nearly  closed  our  door  against  him ;  and,  as  he 
departed,  we  all  felt  that  he  had  left  with  us  the  blessing 
of  the  poor. 

It  was  not  often  that,  as  in  the  above  instance,  my 
mother's  prudence  got  the  better  of  her  charity.  The 
regular  "old  stragglers"  regarded  her  as  an  unfailing 
friend;  and  the  sight  of  her  plain  cap  was  to  them  an 
assurance  of  forthcoming  creature  comforts.  There  was 
indeed  a  tribe  of  lazy  strollers,  having  their  place  of 
rendezvous  in  the  town  of  Barrington,  New  Hampshire, 
whose  low  vices  had  placed  them  beyond  even  the  pale  of 
her  benevolence.  They  were  not  unconscious  of  their  evil 
reputation ;  and  experience  had  taught  them  the  necessity 
of  concealing,  under  well-contrived  disguises,  their  true 
character.  They  came  to  us  in  all  shapes  and  with  all 
appearances  save  the  true  one,  with  most  miserable  stories 
of  mishap  and  sickness  and  all  "the  ills  which  flesh  is 
heir  to."  It  was  particularly  vexatious  to  discover,  when 
too  late,  that  our  sympathies  and  charities  had  been 
expended  upon  such  graceless  vagabonds  as  the  "  Bar 
rington  beggars."  An  old  withered  hag,  known  by  the 
appellation  of  Hopping  Pat, —  the  wise  woman  of  her 
tribe,  —  was  in  the  habit  of  visiting  us,  with  her  hopeful 
grandson,  who  had  "  a  gift  for  preaching  "  as  well  as  for 
many  other  things  not  exactly  compatible  with  holy 
orders.  He  sometimes  brought  with  him  a  tame  crow,  a 


YANKEE    GYPSIES.  361 

shrewd,  knavish-looking  bird,  who,  when  in  the  humor  for 
it,  could  talk  like  Barnaby  Rudge's  raven.  He  used  to 
say  he  could  "  do  nothin'  at  exhortin'  without  a  white 
handkercher  on  his  neck  and  money  in  his  pocket "  —  a 
fact  going  far  to  confirm  the  opinions  of  the  Bishop  of 
Exeter  and  the  Puseyites  generally,  that  there  can  be  no 
priest  without  tithes  and  surplice. 

These  people  have  for  several  generations  lived  dis 
tinct  from  the  great  mass  of  the  community,  like  the 
gypsies  of  Europe,  whom  in  many  respects  they  closely 
resemble.  They  have  the  same  settled  aversion  to  labor 
and  the  same  disposition  to  avail  themselves  of  the  fruits 
of  the  industry  of  others.  They  love  a  wild,  out-of-door 
life,  sing  songs,  tell  fortunes,  and  have  an  instinctive 
hatred  of  "missionaries  and  cold  water."  It  has  been 
said  —  I  know  not  upon  what  grounds  —  that  their  an 
cestors  were  indeed  a  veritable  importation  of  English 
gypsyhood ;  but  if  so,  they  have  undoubtedly  lost  a  good 
deal  of  the  picturesque  charm  of  its  unhoused  and  free 
condition.  I  very  much  fear  that  my  friend  Mary  Rus 
sell  Mitford,  —  sweetest  of  England's  rural  painters,  — 
who  has  a  poet's  eye  for  the  fine  points  in  gypsy  char 
acter,  would  scarcely  allow  their  claims  to  fraternity  with 
her  own  vagrant  friends,  whose  camp  fires  welcomed  her 
to  her  new  home  at  Swallowfield. 

"  The  proper  study  of  mankind  is  man ; "  and,  accord- 


3G2  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

ing  to  my  view,  no  phase  of  our  common  humanity  is 
altogether  unworthy  of  investigation.  Acting  upon  this 
belief  two  or  three  summers  ago,  when  making,  in  com 
pany  with  my  sister,  a  little  excursion  into  the  hill  country 
of  New  Hampshire,  I  turned  my  horse's  head  towards 
Barrington  for  the  purpose  of  seeing  these  semi-civilized 
strollers  in  their  own  home,  and  returning,  once  for  all, 
their  numerous  visits.  Taking  leave  of  our  hospitable- 
cousins  in  old  Lee  with  about  as  much  solemnity  as  we 
may  suppose  Major  Laing  parted  with  his  friends  when 
he  set  out  in  search  of  desert-girdled  Timbuctoo,  we  drove 
several  miles  over  a  rough  road,  passed  the  Devil's 
Den  unmolested,  crossed  a  fretful  little  streamlet  noisily 
working  its  way  into  a  valley,  where  it  turned  a  lonely, 
half-ruinous  mill,  and  climbing  a  steep  hill  beyond,  saw 
before  us  a  wide  sandy  level,  skirted  on  the  west  and  north 
by  low,  scraggy  hills,  and  dotted  here  and  there  with 
dwarf  pitch  pines.  In  the  centre  of  this  desolate  region 
were  some  twenty  or  thirty  small  dwellings,  grouped  to 
gether  as  irregularly  as  a  Hottentot  kraal.  Unfenced, 
unguarded,  open  to  all  comers  and  goers,  stood  that  city 
of  the  beggars  —  no  wall  or  paling  between  the  ragged 
cabins  to  remind  one  of  the  jealous  distinctions  of  prop 
erty.  The  great  idea  of  its  founders  seemed  visible  in  its 
unappropriated  freedom.  Was  not  the  whole  round  world 
their  own  ?  and  should  they  haggle  about  boundaries  and 


YANKEE    GYPSIES.  363 

title  deeds  ?  For  them,  on  distant  plains,  ripened  golden 
harvests ;  for  them,  in  far-off  workshops,  busy  hands  were 
toiling ;  for  them,  if  they  had  but  the  grace  to  note  it,  the 
broad  earth  put  on  her  garniture  of  beauty,  and  over 
them  hung  the  silent  mystery  of  heaven  and  its  stars. 
That  comfortable  philosophy  which  modern  transcen 
dentalism  has  but  dimly  shadowed  forth  —  that  poetic 
agrarianism,  which  gives  all  to  each  and  each  to  all  —  is 
the  real  life  of  this  city  of  unwork.  To  each  of  its  dingy 
dwellers  might  be  not  unaptly  applied  the  language  of 
one  who,  I  trust,  will  pardon  me  for  quoting  her  beautiful 
poem  in  this  connection :  — 

"  Other  hands  may  grasp  the  field  or  forest, 
Proud  proprietors  in  pomp  may  shine ; 
Thou  art  wealthier —  all  the  world  is  thine." 

But  look !  the  clouds  are  breaking.  "  Fair  weather 
cometh  out  of  the  north."  The  wind  has  blown  away  the 
mists  ;  on  the  gilded  spire  of  John  Street  glimmers  a  beam 
of  sunshine ;  and  there  is  the  sky  again,  hard,  blue,  and 
cold  in  its  eternal  purity,  not  a  whit  the  worse  for  the 
storm.  In  the  beautiful  present  the  past  is  no  longer 
needed.  Reverently  and  gratefully  let  its  volume  be  laid 
aside ;  and  when  again  the  shadows  of  the  outward  world 
fall  upon  the  spirit,  may  I  not  lack  a  good  angel  to  remind 
me  of  its  solace,  even  if  he  comes  in  the  shape  of  a  Bar- 
rington  beggar. 


THE   WORLD'S   END. 

"  Our  Father  Time  is  weak  and  gray, 
Awaiting  for  the  better  day ; 
See  how  idiot-like  he  stands, 
Fumbling  his  old  palsied  hands  !  " 

Shelley's  Masque  of  Anarchy. 

"  STAGE  ready,  gentlemen !  Stage  for  camp  ground, 
Deny !  Second  Advent  camp  meeting  ! " 

Accustomed  as  I  begin  to  feel  to  the  ordinary  sights 
and  sounds  of  this  busy  city,  I  was,  I  confess,  somewhat 
startled  by  this  business-like  annunciation  from  the  driver 
of  a  stage,  who  stood  beside  his  horses  swinging  his  whip 
with  some  degree  of  impatience :  "  Seventy-five  cents  to 
the  Second  Advent  camp  ground  !" 

The  stage  was  soon  filled ;  the  driver  cracked  his  whip 
and  went  rattling  down  the  street. 

The  Second  Advent  —  the  coming  of  our  Lord  in 
person  upon  this  earth,  with  signs,  and  wonders,  and 
terrible  judgments — the  heavens  rolling  together  as  a 
scroll,  the  elements  melting  with  fervent  heat !  The 

(364) 


THE  AVORLD'S  END.  365 

mighty  consummation  of  all  things  at  hand,  with  its 
destruction  and  its  triumphs,  sad  waitings  of  the  lost  and 
rejoicing  songs  of  the  glorified  !  From  this  over-swarm 
ing  hive  of  industry  —  from  these  crowded  treadmills  of 
gain  —  here  were  men  and  women  going  out  in  solemn 
earnestness  to  prepare  for  the  dread  moment  which  they 
verily  suppose  is  only  a  few  months  distant  —  to  lift  up 
their  warning  voices  in  the  midst  of  scoffers  and  doubters, 
and  to  cry  aloud  to  blind  priests  and  careless  churches, 
"  BEHOLD,  THE  BRIDEGROOM  COMETH  ! " 

It  was  one  of  the  most  lovely  mornings  of  this  loveliest 
season  of  the  year ;  a  warm,  soft  atmosphere ;  clear 
sunshine  falling  on  the  city  spires  and  roofs;  the  hills 
of  Dracut  quiet  and  green  in  the  distance,  with  their 
white  farm  houses  and  scattered  trees;  around  me  the 
continual  tread  of  footsteps  hurrying  to  the  toils  of  the 
day;  merchants  spreading  out  their  wares  for  the  eyes 
of  purchasers ;  sounds  of  hammers,  the  sljarp  clink  of 
trowels,  the  murmur  of  the  great  manufactories  subdued 
by  distance.  How  was  it  possible,  in  the  midst  of  so 
much  life,  in  that  sunrise  light,  and  in  view  of  all  abound 
ing  beauty,  that  the  idea  of  the  death  of  Nature  —  the 
baptism  of  the  world  in  fire  —  could  take  such  a  practical 
shape  as  this  ?  Yet  here  were  sober,  intelligent  men, 
gentle  and  pious  women,  who,  verily  believing  the  end  to 
be  close  at  hand,  had  left  their  counting  rooms,  and  work- 


366  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

shops,  and  household  cares  to  publish  the  great  tidings, 
and  to  startle,  if  possible,  a  careless  and  unbelieving  gen 
eration  into  preparation  for  the  day  of  the  Lord  and  for 
that  blessed  millennium  —  the  restored  paradise  —  when, 
renovated  and  renewed  by  its  fire  purgation,  the  earth 
shall  become  as  of  old  the  garden  of  the  Lord,  and  the 
saints  alone  shall  inherit  it. 

Very  serious  and  impressive  is  the  fact  that  this  idea 
of  a  radical  change  in  our  planet  is  not  only  predicted  in 
the  Scriptures,  but  that  the  Earth  herself,  in  her  primitive 
rocks  and  varying  formations,  on  which  are  lithographed 
the  history  of  successive  convulsions,  darkly  prophesies  of 
others  to  come.  The  old  poet  prophets,  all  the  world 
over,  have  sung  of  a  renovated  world.  A  vision  of  it 
haunted  the  contemplations  of  Plato.  It  is  seen  in  the 
half-inspired  speculations  of  the  old  Indian  mystics.  The 
Cumcean  sibyl  saw  it  in  her  trances.  The  apostles  and 
martyrs  of  our  faith  looked  for  it  anxiously  and  hopefully. 
Gray  anchorites  in  the  deserts,  worn  pilgrims  to  the  holy 
places  of  Jewish  and  Christian  tradition,  prayed  for  its 
coming.  It  inspired  the  gorgeous  visions  of  the  early 
fathers.  In  every  age  since  the  Christian  era,  from  the 
caves,  and  forests,  and  secluded  "  upper  chambers  "  of  the 
times  of  the  first  missionaries  of  the  cross,  from  the  Gothic 
temples  of  the  middle  ages,  from  the  bleak  mountain 
gorges  of  the  Alps,  where  the  haunted  heretics  put  up 


THE  TVORLD'S  END.  367 

their  expostulation,  "How  long,  0  Lord,  how  long?" 
down  to  the  present  time,  and  from  this  Deny  camp 
ground,  have  been  uttered  the  prophecy  and  the  prayer 
for  its  fulfilment. 

How  this  great  idea  manifests  itself  in  the  lives  of  the 
enthusiasts  of  the  days  of  Cromwell !  Think  of  Sir 
Henry  Vane,  cool,  sagacious  statesman  as  he  was,  waiting 
with  eagerness  for  the  foreshadowings  of  the  millennium, 
and  listening,  even  in  the  very  council  hall,  for  the  blast 
of  the  last  trumpet !  Think  of  the  Fifth  Monarchy  I 
weary  with  waiting  for  the  long-desired  consummati 
rushing  out  with  drawn  swords  and  loaded  matchlocks 
into  the  streets  of  London  to  establish  at  once  the  rule  of 
King  Jesus !  Think  of  the  wild  enthusiasts  at  Munster, 
verily  imagining  that  the  millennial  reign  had  commenced 
in  their  city  !  Still  later,  think  of  Granville  Sharpe,  dili 
gently  laboring  in  his  vocation  of  philanthropy,  laying 
plans  for  the  slow  but  beneficent  amelioration  of  the  con 
dition  of  his  country  and  the  world,  and  at  the  same  time 
maintaining,  with  the  zeal  of  Father  Miller  himself,  that 
the  earth  was  just  on  the  point  of  combustion,  and  that 
the  millennium  would  render  all  his  benevolent  schemes 
of  no  sort  of  consequence  ! 

And,  after  all,  is  the  idea  itself  a  vain  one  ?  Shall 
to-morrow  be  as  to-day?  Shall  the  antagonism  of  good 
and  evil  continue  as  heretofore  forever?  Is  there  no 


368  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

hope  that  this  world-wide  prophecy  of  the  human  soul, 
uttered  in  all  climes,  in  all  times,  shall  yet  be  fulfilled  ? 
Who  shall  say  it  may  not  be  true  ?  Nay,  is  not  its  truth 
proved  by  its  universality  ?  The  hope  of  all  earnest  souls 
must  be  realized.  That  which,  through  a  distorted  and 
doubtful  medium,  shone  even  upon  the  martyr  enthusiasts 
of  the  French  revolution,  —  soft  gleams  of  heaven's  light 
rising  over  the  hell  of  man's  passions  and  crimes,  —  the 
glorious  ideal  of  Shelley,  who,  atheist  as  he  was  through 

«arly  prejudice  and  defective  education,  saw  the  horizon 
f  the  world's  future  kindling  with  the  light  of  a  better 
day  —  that  hope   and  that   faith  which   constitute,  as   it 
were,  the  world's  life,  and  without  which  it  would  be  dark 
and  dead,  cannot  be  in  vain. 

I  do  not,  I  confess,  sympathize  with  my  Second  Advent 
friends  in  their  lamentable  depreciation  of  Mother  Earth 
even  in  her  present  state.  I  find  it  extremely  difficult  to 
comprehend  how  it  is  that  this  goodly,  green,  sunlit  home 
of  ours  is  resting  under  a  curse.  It  really  does  not  seem 
to  me  to  be  altogether  like  the  roll  which  the  angel  bore 
in  the  prophet's  vision,  "  written  within  and  without  with 
mourning,  lamentation,  and  woe."  September  sunsets, 
changing  forests,  moonrise  and  cloud,  sun  and  rain,  —  I, 
for  one,  am  contented  with  them.  They  fill  my  heart 
with  a  sense  of  beauty.  I  see  in  them  the  perfect  work 
of  infinite  love  as  well  as  wisdom.  It  may  be  that  our 


THE  WORLD'S  END.  369 

Advent  friends,  however,  coincide  with  the  opinions  of  an 
old  writer  on  the  prophecies,  who  considered  the  hills  and 
valleys  of  the  earth's  surface  and  its  changes  of  seasons 
as  so  many  visible  manifestations  of  God's  curse,  and 
that  in  the  millennium,  as  in  the  days  of  Adam's  inno 
cence,  all  these  picturesque  inequalities  would  be  levelled 
nicely  away,  and  the  flat  surface  laid  handsomely  down 
to  grass  ! 

As  might  be  expected,  the  effect  of  this  belief  in  the 
speedy  destruction  of  the  world  and  the  personal  coming 
of  the  Messiah,  acting  upon  a  class  of  uncultivated,  and, 
in  some  cases,  gross  minds,  is  not  always  in  keeping  with 
the  enlightened  Christian's  ideal  of  the  better  day.  One 
is  shocked  in  reading  some  of  the  "hymns"  of  these 
believers.  Sensual  images  —  semi-Mahometan  descrip 
tions  of  the  condition  of  the  "  saints  "  —  exultations  over 
the  destruction  of  the  "  sinners  "  —  mingle  with  the  beau 
tiful  and  soothing  promises  of  the  prophets.  There  are 
indeed  occasionally  to  be  found  among  the  believers  men 
of  refined  and  exalted  spiritualism,  who  in  their  lives  and 
conversation  remind  one  of  Tennyson's  Christian  knight 
errant  in  his  yearning  towards  the  hope  set  before 

him :  — 

" •  to  me  is  given 

Such  hope  I  may  not  fear  ; 
I  long  to  breathe  the  airs  of  heaven, 
Which  sometimes  meet  me  here. 
24 


370  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES.* 

I  muse  on  joys  which  cannot  cease, 
Pure  spaces  filled  with  living  beams, 

White  lilies  of  eternal  peace, 
Whose  odors  haunt  my  dreams." 

One  of  the  most  ludicrous  examples  of  the  sensual 
phase  of  Millerism,  the  incongruous  blending  of  the 
sublime  with  the  ridiculous,  was  mentioned  to  me  not  long 
since.  A  fashionable  young  woman  in  the  western  part 
of  this  state  became  an  enthusiastic  believer  in  the  doc 
trine.  On  the  day  which  had  been  designated  as  the 
closing  one  of  time  she  packed  all  her  fine  dresses  and 
toilet  valuables  in  a  large  trunk,  with  long  straps  attached 
to  it,  and,  seating  herself  upon  it,  buckled  the  straps  over 
her  shoulders,  patiently  awaiting  the  crisis  —  shrewdly 
calculating  that,  as  she  must  herself  go  upwards,  her 
goods  and  chattels  would  of  necessity  follow. 

Three  or  four  years  ago,  on  my  way  eastward,  I  spent 
an  hour  or  two  at  a  camp  ground  of  the  Second  Advent 
in  East  Kingston.  The  spot  was  well  chosen.  A  tall 
growth  of  pine  and  hemlock  threw  its  melancholy  shadow 
over  the  multitude,  who  were  arranged  upon  rough  seats 
of  boards  and  logs.  Several  hundred  —  perhaps  a  thou 
sand  people  —  were  present,  and  more  were  rapidly 
coming.  Drawn  about  in  a  circle,  forming  a  background 
of  snowy  whiteness  to  the  dark  masses  of  men  and  foli 
age,  were  the  white  tents,  and  back  of  them  the  provision 


THE  WORLD'S  END.  371 

stalls  and  cookshops.  When  I  reached  the  ground,  a 
hymn,  the  words  of  which  I  could  not  distinguish,  was 
pealing  through  the  dim  aisles  of  the  forest.  I  could 
readily  perceive  that  it  had  its  effect  upon  the  multitude 
before  me,  kindling  to  higher  intensity  their  already 
excited  enthusiasm.  The  preachers  were  placed  in  a 
rude  pulpit  of  rough  boards,  carpeted  only  by  the  dead 
forest  leaves  and  flowers,  and  tasselled,  not  with  silk  and 
velvet,  but  with  the  green  boughs  of  the  sombre  hemlocks 
around  it.  One  of  them  followed  the  music  in  an  earnest 
exhortation  on  the  duty  of  preparing  for  the  great  event. 
Occasionally  he  was  really  eloquent,  and  his  description 
of  the  lasfc  day  had  the  ghastly  distinctness  .of  Anelli's 
painting  of  the  End  of  the  World.  '!  ?ajj  *« 

Suspended  from  the  front  of  the  rude  pulpit  Tvere  two 
broad  sheets  of  canvas,  upon  one  of  which  was  the  figure 
of  a  man,  the  head  of  gold,  the  breast  and  arms  of  silver, 
the  belly  of  brass,  the  legs  of  iron,  aad'feet  of  clay  —  the 
dream  of  Nebuchadnezzar.  On  the  other  were  depicted 
the  wonders  of  the  Apocalyptic  vision  —  the  beasts,  the 
dragons,  the  scarlet  woman  seen  by  the  seer  of  Patmos, 
Oriental  types,  figures,  and  mystic  symbols,  translated 
into  staring  Yankee  realities,  and  exhibited  like  the 
beasts  of  a  travelling  menagerie.  One  horrible  image, 
with  its  hideous  heads  and  scaly  caudal  extremity,  re- 


372  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

minded   me  of  the  tremendous  line  of  Milton,  who,  in 
speaking  of  the  same  evil  dragon,  describes  him  as 

"  Swindging  the  scaly  horrors  of  his  folded  tail." 

To  an  imaginative  mind  the  scene  was  full  of  novel 
interest.  The  white  circle  of  tents ;  the  dim  wood 
arches ;  the  upturned,  earnest  faces ;  the  loud  voices  of 
the  speakers,  burdened  with  the  awful  symbolic  language 
of  the  Bible;  the  smoke  from  the  fires  rising  like 
incense,  —  carried  me  back  to  those  days  of  primitive 
worship  which  tradition  faintly  whispers  of,  when  on  hill 
tops  and  in  the  shade  of  old  woods  Religion  had  her  first 
altars,  with  every  man  for  her  priest  and  the  whole  uni 
verse  for  her  temple. 

Wisely  and  truthfully  has  Dr.  C banning  spoken  of 
this  doctrine  of  the  Second  Advent  in  his  memorable 
discourse  in  Berkshire  a  little  before  his  death:  — 

"There  are  some  among  us  at  the  present  moment 
who  are  waiting  for  the  speedy  coming  of  Christ.  They 
expect,  before  another  year  closes,  to  see  him  in  the 
clouds,  to  hear  his  voice,  to  stand  before  his  judgment 
seat.  These  illusions  spring  from  misinterpretation  of 
Scripture  language.  Christ,  in  the  New  Testament  is  said 
to  come  whenever  his  religion  breaks  out  in  new  glory 
or  gains  new  triumphs.  He  came  in  the  Holy  Spirit  in 


THE  WORLD'S  END.  373 

the  day  of  Pentecost.  He  came  in  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem,  which,  by  subverting  the  old  ritual  law  and 
breaking  the  power  of  the  worst  enemies  of  his  religion, 
insured  to  it  new  victories.  He  came  in  the  reformation 
of  the  church.  He  came  on  this  day  four  years  ago, 
when,  through  his  religion,  eight  hundred  thousand  men 
were  raised  from  the  lowest  degradation  to  the  rights, 
and  dignity,  and  fellowship  of  men.  Christ's  outward 
appearance  is  of  little  moment  compared  with  the  brighter 
manifestation  of  his  spirit.  The  Christian,  whose  inward 
eyes  and  ears  are  touched  by  God,  discerns  the  coming 
of  Christ,  hears  the  sound  of  his  chariot  wheels  and  the 
voice  of  his  trumpet,  when  no  other  perceives  them.  He 
discerns  the  Savior's  advent  in  the  dawning  of  higher 
truth  on  the  world,  in  new  aspirations  of  the  church  after 
perfection,  in  the  prostration  of  prejudice  and  error,  in 
brighter  expressions  of  Christian  love,  in  more  enlightened 
and  intense  consecration  of  the  Christian  to  the  cause  of 
humanity,  freedom,  and  religion.  Christ  comes  in  the 
conversion,  the  regeneration,  the  emancipation  of  the 
world." 


OF  THK 

UNIVERSITY 


SWEDENBOKG. 

THERE  are  times  when,  looking  only  on  the  surface  of 
things,  one  is  almost  ready  to  regard  Lowell  as  a  sort  of 
sacred  city  of  Mammon  —  the  Benares  of  gain  ;  its  huge 
mills,  temples;  its  crowded  dwellings,  lodging-places  of 
disciples  and  "proselytes  within  the  gate;"  its  ware 
houses,  stalls  for  the  sale  of  relics.  A  very  mean  idol 
-worship  too,  unrelieved  by  awe  and  reverence  —  a  selfish, 
earthward-looking  devotion  to  the  "  least-erected  spirit 
that  fell  from  paradise."  I  grow  weary  of  seeing  man 
and  mechanism  reduced  to  a  common  level,  moved  by  the 
same  impulse,  answering  to  the  same  bell  call.  A  night 
mare  of  materialism  broods  over  all.  I  long  at  times  to 
hear  a  voice  crying  through  the  streets  like  that  of  one 
of  the  old  prophets  proclaiming  the  great  first  truth — that 
the  Lord  alone  is  God. 

Yet  is  there  not  another  side  to  the  picture?  High 
over  sounding  workshops  spires  glisten  in  the  sun  —  silent 
fingers  pointing  heavenward.  The  workshops  themselves 
are  instinct  with  other  and  subtler  processes  than  cotton 

(374) 


STVEDENBORG.  375 

spinning  or  carpet  weaving.  Each  human  being  who 
watches  beside  jack  or  power  loom  feels  more  or  less  in 
tensely  that  it  is  a  solemn  thing  to  live.  Here  are  sin 
and  sorrow,  yearnings  for  lost  peace,  outgushing  gratitude 
of  forgiven  spirits,  hopes  and  fears,  which  stretch  be 
yond  the  horizon  of  time  into  eternity.  Death  is  here. 
The  graveyard  utters  its  warning.  Over  all  bends  the 
eternal  heaven  in  its  silence  and  mystery.  Nature,  even 
here,  is  mightier  than  Art,  and  God  is  above  all.  Under 
neath  the  din  of  labor  and  the  sounds  of  traffic,  a  voice, 
felt  rather  than  heard,  reaches  the  heart,  prompting  the 
same  fearful  questions  which  stirred  the  soul  of  the  world's 
oldest  poet :  "If  a  man  die,  shall  he  live  again?  "  "Man 
giveth  up  the  ghost,  and  where  is  he?"  Out  of  the 
depths  of  burdened  and  weary  hearts  comes  up  the  ago 
nizing  inquiry,  "  What  shall  I  do  to  be  saved  ?  "  "  Who 
shall  deliver  me  from  the  body  of  this  death?" 

As  a  matter  of  course,  in  a  city  like  this,  composed  of 
all  classes  of  our  many-sided  population,  a  great  variety 
of  religious  sects  have  their  representatives  in  Lowell. 
The  young  city  is  dotted  over  with  "steeple  houses," 
most  of  them  of  the  Yankee  order  of  architecture.  The 
Episcopalians  have  a  house  of  worship  on  Merrimac 
Street  —  a  pile  of  dark  stone,  with  low  Gothic  doors  and 
arched  windows.  A  plat  of  grass  lies  between  it  and  the 
dusty  street ;  and  near  it  stands  the  dwelling  house  in- 


376  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

tended  for  the  minister,  built  of  the  same  material  as  the 
church  and  surrounded  by  trees  and  shrubbery.  The 
attention  of  the  stranger  is  also  attracted  by  another  con 
secrated  building  on  the  hill  slope  of  Belvidere  —  one  of 
Irving' s  "shingle  palaces,"  painted  in  imitation  of  stone  — 
a  great  wooden  sham,  "  whelked  and  horned  "  with  pine 
spires  and  turrets — a  sort  of  whittled  representation  of 
the  many-headed  beast  of  the  Apocalypse. 

In  addition  to  the  established  sects  which  have  reared 
their  visible  altars  in  the  City  of  Spindles,  there  are  many 
who  have  not  yet  marked  the  boundaries  or  set  up  the 
pillars  and  stretched  out  the  curtains  of  their  sectarian 
tabernacles  ;  who,  in  halls  and  "  upper  chambers  "  and  in 
the  solitude  of  their  own  homes,  keep  alive  the  spirit  of 
devotion,  and,  wrapping  closely  around  them  the  mantles 
of  their  order,  maintain  the  integrity  of  its  peculiarities  in 
the  midst  of  an  unbelieving  generation. 

Not  long  since,  in  company  with  a  friend  who  is  a  regu 
lar  attendant,  I  visited  the  little  meeting  of  the  disciples 
of  Emanuel  Swedenborg.  Passing  over  Chapel  Hill  and 
leaving  the  city  behind  us,  we  reached  the  stream  which 
winds  through  the  beautiful  woodlands  at  the  Powder 
Mills  and  mingles  its  waters  with  the  Concord.  The  hall 
in  which  the  followers  of  the  Gothland  seer  meet  is  small 
and  plain,  with  unpainted  seats,  like  those  of  "  the  people 
called  Quakers,"  and  looks  out  upon  the  still  woods  and 


SWEDENBORG.  377 

that  ts  willowy  stream  which  turns  a  mill."  An  organ  of 
small  size,  yet,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  vastly  out  of  proportion 
with  the  room,  filled  the  place  usually  occupied  by  the 
pulpit,  which  was  here  only  a  plain  desk,  placed  modestly 
by  the  side  of  it.  The  congregation  have  no  regular 
preacher;  but  the  exercises  of  reading  the  Scriptures, 
prayers,  and  selections  from  the  Book  of  Worship  were 
conducted  by  one  of  the  lay  members.  A  manuscript 
sermon,  by  a  clergyman  of  the  order  in  Boston,  was  read, 
and  apparently  listened  to  with  much  interest.  It  was 
well  written  and  deeply  imbued  with  the  doctrines  of  the 
church.  I  was  impressed  by  the  gravity  and  serious 
earnestness  of  the  little  audience.  There  were  here  no 
circumstances  calculated  to  excite  enthusiasm,  nothing 
of  the  pomp  of  religious  rites  and  ceremonies ;  only  a 
settled  conviction  of  the  truth  of  the  doctrines  of  their 
faith  could  have  thus  brought  them  together.  I  could 
scarcely  make  the  fact  a  reality,  as  I  sat  among  them,  that 
here,  in  the  midst  of  our  bare  and  hard  utilities,  in  the 
very  centre  and  heart  of  our  mechanical  civilization,  were 
devoted  and  undoubting  believers  in  the  mysterious  and 
wonderful  revelations  of  the  Swedish  prophet  —  revelations 
which  look  through  all  external  and  outward  manifesta 
tions  to  inward  realities ;  which  regard  all  objects  in  the 
world  of  sense  only  as  the  types  and  symbols  of  the  world 


378  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

of  spirit ;  literally  unmasking  the  universe  and  laying  bare" 
the  profoundest  mysteries  of  life. 

The  character  and  writings  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg 
constitute  one  of  the  puzzles  and  marvels  of  metaphysics 
and  psychology.  A  man  remarkable  for  his  practical 
activities,  an  ardent  scholar  of  the  exact  sciences,  versed 
in  all  the  arcana  of  physics,  a  skilful  and  inventive  mech 
anician,  he  has  evolved  from  the  hard  and  gross  mate 
rialism  of  his  studies  a  system  of  transcendent  spiritualism. 
From  his  aggregation  of  cold  and  apparently  lifeless 
practical  facts  beautiful  and  wonderful  abstractions  start 
forth  like  blossoms  on  the  rod  of  the  Levite.  A  politician 
and  a  courtier,  a  man  of  the  world,  a  mathematician  en 
gaged  in  the  soberest  details  of  the  science,  he  has  given 
to  the  world,  in  the  simplest  and  most  natural  language,  a 
series  of  speculations  upon  the  great  mystery  of  being; 
detailed,  matter-of-fact  narratives  of  revelations  from  the 
spiritual  world,  which  at  once  appall  us  by  their  bold 
ness,  and  excite  our  wonder  at  their  extraordinary  method, 
logical  accuracy,  and  perfect  consistency.  These  remark 
able  speculations  —  the  workings  of  a  mind  in  which  a 
powerful  imagination  allied  itself  with  superior  reasoning 
faculties,  the  marvellous  current  of  whose  thought  ran 
only  in  the  diked  and  guarded  channels  of  mathematical 
demonstration  —  he  uniformly  speaks  of  as  "  facts."  His 


SWEDENBORG.  379 

perceptions  of  abstractions  were  so  intense  that  they  seem 
to  have  reached  that  point  where  thought  became  sensible 
to  sight  as  well  as  feeling.  What  he  thought,  that  he 
saw. 

He  relates  his  visions  of  the  spiritual  world  as  he 
would  the  incidents  of  a  walk  round  his  own  city  of 
Stockholm.  One  can  almost  see  him  in  his  "brown  coat 
and  velvet  breeches,"  lifting  his  "  cocked  hat "  to  an 
angel,  or  keeping  an  unsavory  spirit  at  arm's  length  with 
that  "  goldheaded  cane "  which  his  London  host  describes 
as  his  inseparable  companion  in  walking.  His  graphic 
descriptions  have  always  an  air  of  naturalness  and  proba 
bility  ;  yet  there  is  a  minuteness  of  detail  at  times  almost 
bordering  on  the  ludicrous.  In  his  Memorable  Relations 
he  manifests  nothing  of  the  imagination  of  Milton,  over 
looking  the  closed  gates  of  paradise  or  following  the 
"  pained  fiend "  in  his  flight  through  chaos ;  nothing  of 
Dante's  terrible  imagery  appalls  us ;  we  are  led  on  from 
heaven  to  heaven  very  much  as  Defoe  leads  us  after 
his  shipwrecked  Crusoe.  We  can  scarcely  credit  the  fact 
that  we  are  not  traversing  our  lower  planet ;  and  the 
angels  seem  vastly  like  our  common  acquaintances.  We 
seem  to  recognize  the  t;  John  Smiths,"  and  "  Mr.  Browns," 
and  "  the  old  familiar  faces  "  of  our  mundane  habitation. 
The  evil  principle  in  Swedenborg's  picture  is,  not  the 
colossal  and  massive  horror  of  the  Inferno,  nor  that  stern 


380  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

wrestler  with  fate  who  darkens  "the  canvas  of  Paradise 
Lost,  but  an  aggregation  of  poor,  confused  spirits,  seek 
ing  rest  and  finding  none  save  in  the  unsavory  atmosphere 
of  the  "falses."  These  small  fry  of  devils  remind  us 
only  of  certain  unfortunate  fellows  whom  we  have  known, 
who  seem  incapable  of  living  in  good  and  wholesome 
society,  and  who  are  manifestly  given  over  to  believe  a 
lie.  Thus  it  is,  that  the  very  "heavens  "  and  "  hells  "  of 
the  Swedish  mystic  seem  to  be  "of  the  earth,  earthy.'5 
He  brings  the  spiritual  world  into  close  analogy  with  the 
material  one. 

In  this  hurried  paper  I  have  neither  space  nor  leisure 
to  attempt  an  analysis  of  the  great  doctrines  which  under 
lie  the  "  revelations "  of  Swedenborg.  His  remarkably 
suggestive  books  are  becoming  familiar  to  the  reading  and 
reflecting  portion  of  the  community.  They  are  not  un 
worthy  of  study  ;  but,  in  the  language  of  another,  I  would 
say,  "Emulate  Swedenborg  in  his  exemplary  life,  his 
learning,  his  virtues,  his  independent  thought,  his  desire 
for  wisdom,  his  love  of  the  good  and  true ;  aim  to  be 
his  equal,  his  superior,  in  these  things ;  but  call  no  man 
your  master." 


FIRST   DAY   IN   LOWELL. 

To  a  population  like  that  of  Lowell,  the  weekly  respite 
from  monotonous  in-door  toil  afforded  by  the  first  day  of 
the  week  is  particularly  grateful.  Sabbath  comes  to  the 
weary  and  overworked  operative  emphatically  as  a  day 
of  rest.  It  opens  upon  him  somewhat  as  it  did  upon 
George  Herbert,  as  he  describes  it  in  his  exquisite  little 

poem :  — 

"  Sweet  day,  so  pure,  so  cool,  and  bright, 

The  bridal  of  the  earth  and  sky  !  " 

Apart  from  its  soothing  religious  associations,  it  brings 
with  it  the  assurance  of  physical  comfort  and  freedom. 
It  is  something  to  be  able  to  doze  out  the  morning  from 
daybreak  to  breakfast  in  that  luxurious  state  between 
sleeping  and  waking  in  which  the  mind  eddies  slowly  and 
peacefully  round  and  round  instead  of  rushing  onward  — 
the  future  a  blank,  the  past  annihilated,  the  present  but 
a  dim  consciousness  of  pleasurable  existence.  Then,  too, 
the  satisfaction  is  by  no  means  inconsiderable  of  throw 
ing  aside  the  worn  and  soiled  habiliments  of  labor  and 

(381) 


382  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

appearing  in  neat  and  comfortable  attire.  The  moral  in 
fluence  of  dress  has  not  been  overrated  even  by  Carlyle's 
professor  in  his  Sartor  Resartus.  William  Penn  says  that 
cleanliness  is  akin  to  godliness.  A  well-dressed  man,  all 
other  things  being  equal,  is  not  half  as  likely  to  compro 
mise  his  character  as  one  who  approximates  to  shabbi- 
ness.  Lawrence  Sterne  used  to  say  that  when  he  felt 
himself  giving  way  to  low  spirits  and  a  sense  of  depres 
sion  and  worthlessness  —  a  sort  of  predisposition  for  all 
sorts  of  little  meannesses  —  he  forthwith  shaved  himself, 
brushed  his  wig,  donned  his  best  dress  and  his  gold 
rings,  and  thus  put  to  flight  the  azure  demons  of  his  un 
fortunate  temperament.  There  is  somehow  a  close  affin 
ity  between  moral  purity  and  clean  linen  ;  and  the  sprites 
of  our  daily  temptation,  who  seem  to  find  easy  access  to 
us  through  a  broken  hat  or  a  rent  in  the  elbow,  are  mani 
festly  baffled  by  the  "  complete  mail "  of  a  clean  and  decent 
dress.  I  recollect  on  one  occasion  hearing  my  mother 
tell  our  family  physician  that  a  woman  in  the  neighbor 
hood  not  remarkable  for  her  tidiness  had  become  a 
church  member.  "  Humph  !  "  said  the  doctor,  in  his 
quick,  sarcastic  way,  "  what  of  that  ?  Don't  you  know 
that  no  unclean  thing  can  enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ?  " 
"  If  you  would  see  "  Lowell  "  aright,"  as  Walter  Scott 
says  of  Melrose  Abbey,  one  must  be  here  of  a  pleasant 
first  day  at  the  close  of  what  is  called  the  "  afternoon 


FIRST    DAT    IX    LOWELL.  383 

service."  The  streets  are  then  blossoming  like  a  peripa 
tetic  flower  garden ;  as  if  the  tulips,  and  lilies,  and  roses 
of  my  friend  W.'s  nursery,  in  the  vale  of  Nonantum, 
should  take  it  into  their  heads  to  promenade  for  exercise. 
Thousands  swarm  forth  who  during  weekdays  are  confined 
to  the  mills.  Gay  colors  alternate  with  snowy  white 
ness  ;  extremest  fashion  elbows  the  plain  demureness  of 
old-fashioned  Methodism.  Fair  pale  faces  catch  a  warmer 
tint  from  the  free  sunshine  and  fresh  air.  The  languid 
step  becomes  elastic  with  that  "  springy  motion  of  the 
gait "  which  Charles  Lamb  admired.  Yet  the  general 
appearance  of  the  city  is  that  of  quietude  ;  the  youthful 
multitude  passes  on  calmly,  its  voices  subdued  to  a  lower 
and  softened  tone,  as  if  fearful  of  breaking  the  repose  of 
the  day  of  rest.  A  stranger  fresh  from  the  gayly-spent 
Sabbaths  of  the  continent  of  Europe  would  be  undoubt 
edly  amazed  at  the  decorum  and  sobriety  of  these  crowd- 
•ed  streets. 

I  am  not  over-precise  in  outward  observances ;  but  I 
nevertheless  welcome  with  joy  unfeigned  this  first  day 
of  the  week  —  sweetest  pause  in  our  hard  life  march, 
greenest  resting-place  in  the  hot  desert  we  are  treading. 
The  errors  of  those  who  mistake  its  benignant  rest  for  the 
iron  rule  of  the  Jewish  Sabbath,  and  who  consequently 
hedge  it  about  with  penalties  and  bow  down  before  it  in 
slavish  terror,  should  not  render  us  less  grateful  for  the 


384  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

real  blessing  it  brings  us.  As  a  day  wrested  in  some  de 
gree  from  the  god  of  this  world,  as  an  opportunity  afford 
ed  for  thoughtful  self-communing,  let  us  receive  it  as  a 
good  gift  of  our  heavenly  Parent  in  love  rather  than 
fear. 

In  passing  along  Central  Street  this  morning,  my  at 
tention  was  directed  by  the  friend  who  accompanied  me 
to  a  group  of  laborers,  with  coats  off  and  sleeves  rolled 
up,  heaving  at  levers,  smiting  with  sledge  hammers,  in 
full  view  of  the  street,  on  the  margin  of  the  canal,  just 
above  Central  Street  Bridge.  I  rubbed  my  eyes,  half 
expecting  that  I  was  the  subject  of  mere  optical  illusion ; 
but  a  second  look  only  confirmed  the  first.  Around  me 
were  solemn,  go-to-meeting  faces  —  smileless  and  awful ; 
and  close  at  hand  were  the  delving,  toiling,  mud-be 
grimed  laborers.  Nobody  seemed  surprised  at  it ;  no 
body  noticed  it  as  a  thing  out  of  the  common  course  of 
events.  And  this,  too,  in  a  city  where  the  Sabbath  pro 
prieties  are  sternly  insisted  upon ;  where  some  twenty 
pulpits  deal  out  anathemas  upon  all  who  "  desecrate 
the  Lord's  day ; "  where  simple  notices  of  meetings  for 
moral  purposes  even  can  scarcely  be  read ;  where  many 
count  it  wrong  to  speak  on  that  day  for  the  slave,  who 
knows  no  Sabbath  of  rest,  or  for  the  drunkard,  who,  im- 
bruted  by  his  appetites,  cannot  enjoy  it.  Verily  there 
are  strange  contradictions  in  our  conventional  morality. 


FIRST    DAY    IN    LOWELL.  385 

Eyes  which,  looking  across  the  Atlantic  on  the  gay 
Sabbath  dances  of  French  peasants,  are  turned  up 
ward  with  horror,  are  somehow  blind  to  matters  close  at 
home.  What  would  be  sin  past  repentance  in  an  indi 
vidual  becomes  quite  proper  in  a  corporation.  True,  the 
Sabbath  is  holy ;  but  the  canals  must  be  repaired.  Ev 
ery  body  ought  to  go  to  meeting ;  but  the  dividends  must 
not  be  diminished,  Church  indulgences  are  not,  after  all, 
confined  to  Rome. 

To  a  close  observer  of  human  nature  there  is  nothing 
surprising  in  the  fact  that  a  class  of  persons,  who  wink  at 
this  sacrifice  of  Sabbath  sanctities  to  the  demon  of  gain, 
look  at  the  same  time  with  stern  disapprobation  upon 
every  thing  partaking  of  the  character  of  amusement,  how 
ever  innocent  and  healthful,  on  this  day.  But  for  my 
self,  looking  down  through  the  light  of  a  golden  evening 
upon  these  quietly  passing  groups,  I  cannot  find  it  in  my 
heart  to  condemn  them  for  seeking  on  this  their  sole  day 
of  leisure  the  needful  influences  of  social  enjoyment,  un 
restrained  exercise,  and  fresh  air.  I  cannot  think  any 
essential  service  to  religion  or  humanity  would  result 
from  the  conversion  of  their  day  of  rest  into  a  Jewish 
Sabbath,  and  their  consequent  confinement,  like  so  many 
pining  prisoners,  in  close  and  crowded  boarding  houses. 
Is  not  cheerfulness  a  duty,  a  better  expression  of  our 
gratitude  for  God's  blessings  than  mere  words  ?  And 
25 


386  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

even  under  the  old  law  of  rituals,  what  answer  had  the 
Pharisees  to  the  question,  "  Is  it  not  lawful  to  do  good  on 
the  Sabbath  day  ?  " 

I  am  naturally  of  a  sober  temperament,  and  am,  besides, 
a  member  of  that  sect  which  Dr.  More  has  called,  mis- 
takingly  indeed,  "  the  most  melancholy  of  all ; "  but  I 
confess  a  special  dislike  of  disfigured  faces,  ostentatious 
displays  of  piety,  pride  aping  humility.  Asceticism,  mo- 
roseness,  self-torture,  ingratitude  in  view  of  down-shower 
ing  blessings,  and  painful  restraint  of  the  better  feelings 
of  our  nature  may  befit  a  Hindoo  fakir,  or  a  Mandan 
medicine  man  with  buffalo  skulls  strung  to  his  lacerated 
muscles  ;  but  they  look  to  me  sadly  out  of  place  in  a  be 
liever  of  the  glad  evangel  of  the  New  Testament.  The 
life  of  the  divine  Teacher  affords  no  countenance  to  this 
sullen  and  gloomy  saintliness,  shutting  up  the  heart 
against  the  sweet  influences  of  human  sympathy  and  the 
blessed  ministrations  of  Nature.  To  the  horror  and 
clothesrending  astonishment  of  blind  Pharisees  he  ut 
tered  the  significant  truth,  that  "  the  Sabbath  was  made 
for  man,  and  not  man  for  the  Sabbath."  From  the  close 
air  of  crowded  cities,  from  thronged  temples  and  syna 
gogues, —  where  priest  and  Levite  kept  up  a  show  of 
worship,  drumming  upon  hollow  ceremonials  the  more 
loudly  for  their  emptiness  of  life,  as  the  husk  rustles  the 
more  when  the  grain  is  gone,  —  he  led  his  disciples  out 


FIRST    DAY    IX    LOWELL.  387 

into  the  country  stillness,  under  clear  Eastern  heavens,  on 
the  breezy  tops  of  mountains,  in  the  shade  of  fruit  trees, 
by  the  side  of  fountains,  and  through  yellow  harvest  fields, 
enforcing  the  lessons  of  his  divine  morality  by  compari 
sons  and  parables  suggested  by  the  objects  around  him 
or  the  cheerful  incidents  of  social  humanity  —  the  vine 
yard,  the  field  lily,  the  sparrow  in  the  air,  the  sower  in 
the  seed  field,  the  feast  and  the  marriage.  Thus  gen 
tly,  thus  sweetly  kind  and  cheerful,  fell  from  his  lips  the 
GOSPEL  OF  HUMANITY  ;  love  the  fulfilling  of  every  law  ; 
our  love  for  one  another  measuring  and  manifesting  our 
love  of  him.  The  baptism  wherewith  he  was  baptized 
was  that  of  divine  fulness  in  the  wants  of  our  humanity ; 
the  deep  waters  of  our  sorrows  went  over  him  ;  ineffable 
purity  sounding  for  our  sakes  the  dark  abysm  of  sin  ;  yet 
how  like  a  river  of  light  runs  that  serene  and  beautiful 
life  through  the  narratives  of  the  evangelists  !  He  broke 
bread  with  the  poor  despised  publican ;  he  sat  down  with 
the  fishermen  by  the  Sea  of  Galilee ;  he  spoke  compas 
sionate  words  to  sinsick  Magdalen ;  he  sanctified  by 
his  presence  the  social  enjoyments  of  home  and  friendship 
in  the  family  of  Bethany  ;  he  laid  his  hand  of  blessing 
on  the  sunny  brows  of  children  ;  he  had  regard  even  to 
the  merely  animal  wants  of  the  multitude  in  the  wilder 
ness  ;  he  frowned  upon  none  of  life's  simple  and  natural 
pleasures.  The  burden  of  his  gospel  was  love;  and  in 


388  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

life  and  word  he  taught  evermore  the  divided  and  scat 
tered  children  of  one  great  family  that  only  as  they  drew 
near  each  other  could  they  approach  Him  who  was  their 
common  centre  ;  and  that,  while  no  ostentation  of  prayer 
nor  rigid  observance  of  ceremonies  could  elevate  man  to 
heaven,  the  simple  exercise  of  love,  in  thought  and  ac 
tion,  could  bring  heaven  -down  to  man.  To  weary  and 
restless  spirits  he  taught  the  great  truth,  that  happiness 
consists  in  making  others  happy.  No  cloister  for  idle 
genuflections  and  bead  counting,  no  haircloth  for  the 
loins  nor  scourge  for  the  limbs,  but  works  of  love  and 
usefulness  under  the  cheerful  sunshine,  making  the  waste 
places  of  humanity  glad  and  causing  the  heart's  desert 
to  blossom.  "Why,  then,  should  we  go  searching  after  the 
cast-off  sackcloth  of  the  Pharisee?  Are  we  Jews,  or 
Christians?  Must  even  our  gratitude  for  "glad  tidings 
of  great  joy  "  be  desponding  ?  Must  the  hymn  of  our 
thanksgiving  for  countless  mercies  and  the  unspeakable 
gift  of  His  life  have  evermore  an  undertone  of  funeral 
wailing  ?  What !  shall  we  go  murmuring  and  lamenting, 
looking  coldly  on  one  another,  seeing  no  beauty,  nor  light, 
nor  gladness  in  this  good  world,  wherein  we  have  the 
glorious  privilege  of  laboring  in  God's  harvest  field,  with 
angels  for  our  task  companions,  blessed  and  being  blessed  ? 
To  him  who,  neglecting  the  revelations  of  immediate 
duty,  looks  regretfully  behind  and  fearfully  before  him, 


FIRST    DAY    IX    LOWELL.  389 

life  may  well  seem  a  solemn  mystery,  for,  whichever  way 
he  turns,  a  wall  of  darkness  rises  before  him ;  but  down 
upon  the  present,  as  through  a  skylight  between  the  shad 
ows,  falls  a  clear,  still  radiance,  like  beams  from  an  eye 
of  blessing  ;  and,  within  the  circle  of  that  divine  illumina 
tion,  beauty  and  goodness,  truth  and  love,  purity  and 
cheerfulness  blend  like  primal  colors  into  the  clear  har 
mony  of  light.  The  author  of  Proverbial  Philosophy 
has  a  passage  not  unworthy  of  note  in  this  connection, 
when  he  speaks  of  the  train  which  attends  the  just  in 
heaven :  — 

"  Also  in  the  lengthening  troop  see  I  some  clad  in  robes  of  triumph, 
Whose  fair  and  sunny  faces  I  have  known  and  loved  on  earth. 
Welcome,  ye  glorified  Loves,  Graces,  Sciences,  and  Muses, 
That,  like  Sisters  of  Charity,  tended  in  this  world's  hospital ; 
Welcome,  for  verily  I  knew  ye  could  not  but  be  children  of  the 

light; 

Welcome,  chiefly  welcome,  for  I  find  I  have  friends  in  heaven, 
And  some  I  have  scarcely  looked  for  ;  as  thou,  lighthearted  Mirth  ; 
Thou,  also,  star-robed  Urania  ;  and  thou  with  the  curious  glass, 
That  rejoicest  in  tracking  beauty  where  the  eye  was  too  dull  to 

note  it. 

And  art  thou,  too,  among  the  blessed,  mild,  much-injured  Poetry  ? 
That  quickenest  with  light  and  beauty  the  leaden  face  of  matter, 
That  not  unheard,  though  silent,  fillest  earth's  gardens  with  music, 
And  not  unseen,  though  a  spirit,  dost  look  down  upon  us  from  the 
stars." 


TAKING   COMFORT. 

FOR  the  last  few  days  the  fine  weather  has  lured  me 
away  from  books  and  papers  and  the  close  air  of  dwell 
ings  into  the  open  fields,  and  under  the  soft,  warm  sun 
shine,  and  the  softer  light  of  a  full  moon.  The  loveliest 
season  of  the  whole  year  —  that  transient  but  delightful 
interval  between  the  storms  of  the  "  wild  equinox,  with 
all  their  wet,"  and  the  dark,  short,  dismal  days  which 
precede  the  rigor  of  winter  —  is  now  with  us.  The  sun 
rises  through  a  soft  and  hazy  atmosphere ;  the  light  mist 
clouds  melt  gradually  away  before  him ;  and  his  noontide 
light  rests  warm  and  clear  on  still  woods,  tranquil  waters, 
and  grasses  green  with  the  late  autumnal  rains.  The 
rough-wooded  slopes  of  Dracut,  overlooking  the  foils  of 
the  river ;  Fort  Hill,  across  the  Concord,  where  the  red 
man  made  his  last  stand,  and  where  may  still  be  seen  the 
trench  which  he  dug  around  his  rude  fortress ;  the  beau 
tiful  woodlands  on  the  Lowell  and  Tewksbury  shores  of 
the  Concord ;  the  cemetery ;  the  Patucket  Falls,  —  all 

(390) 


TAKING    COMFORT.  391 

within  the  reach  of  a  moderate  walk,  offer  at  this  season 
their  latest  and  loveliest  attractions. 

One  fine  morning,  not  long  ago,  I  strolled  down  the 
Merrimac,  on  the  Tewksbury  shore.  I  know  of  no  walk 
in  the  vicinity  of  Lowell  so  inviting  as  that  along  the 
margin  of  the  river  for  nearly  a  mile  from  the  village  of 
Belvidere.  The  path  winds,  green  and  flower  skirted, 
among  beeches  and  oaks,  through  whose  boughs  you 
catch  glimpses  of  waters  sparkling  and  dashing  below. 
Rocks,  huge  and  picturesque,  jut  out  into  the  stream, 
affording  beautiful  views  of  the  river  and  the  distant  city. 

Half  fatigued  with  my  walk,  I  threw  myself  down  upon 
the  rocky  slope  of  the  bank,  where  the  panorama  of  earth, 
sky,  and  water  lay  clear  and  distinct  about  me.  Far 
above,  silent  and  dim  as  a  picture,  was  the  city,  with  its 
huge  mill  masonry,  confused  chimney  tops,  and  church 
spires ;  nearer  rose  the  height  of  Belvidere,  with  its 
deserted  burial-place  and  neglected  gravestones  sharply 
defined  on  its  bleak,  bare  summit  against  the  sky ;  before 
me  the  river  went  dashing  down  its  rugged  channel,  send 
ing  up  its  everlasting  murmur ;  above  me  the  birch  tree 
hung  its  tassels ;  and  the  last  wild  flowers  of  autumn  pro 
fusely  fringed  the  rocky  rim  of  the  water.  Right  opposite, 
the  Dracut  woods  stretched  upwards  from  the  shore, 
beautiful  with  the  hues  of  frost,  glowing  with  tints  richer 
and  deeper  than  those  which  Claude  or  Poussin  mingled, 


392  TCECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

as  if  the  rainbows  of  a  summer  shower  had  fallen  among 
them.  At  a  little  distance  to  the  right  a  group  of  cattle 
stood  mid-leg  deep  in  the  river;  and  a  troop  of  children, 
brighteyed  and  mirthful,  were  casting  pebbles  at  them 
from  a  projecting  shelf  of  rock.  Over  all  a  warm  but 
softened  sunshine  melted  down  from  a  slumberous  au 
tumnal  sky. 

My  revery  was  disagreeably  broken.  A  low,  grunting 
sound,  half  bestial,  half  human,  attracted  my  attention. 
I  was  not  alone.  Close  beside  me,  half  hidden  by  a  tuft 
of  bushes,  lay  a  human  being,  stretched  out  at  full  length, 
with  his  face  literally  rooted  into  the  gravel.  A  little 
boy,  five  or  six  years  of  age,  clean  and  healthful,  with 
his  fair  brown  locks  and  blue  eyes,  stood  on  the  bank 
above,  gazing  down  upon  him  with  an  expression  of  child 
hood's  simple  and  unaffected  pity. 

"What  ails  you?"  asked  the  boy  at  length.  "What 
makes  you  lie  there  ?  " 

The  prostrate  groveller  struggled  half  way  up,  ex 
hibiting  the  bloated  and  filthy  countenance  of  a  drunkard. 
He  made  two  or  three  efforts  to  get  upon  his  feet,  lost  his 
balance,  and  tumbled  forward  upon  his  face. 

"  What  are  you  doing  there  ?  "  inquired  the  boy. 

" Tm  taking  comfort,'  he  muttered,  with  his  mouth  in 
the  dirt. 

Taking   his    comfort !     There   he  lay,  —  squalid   and 


TAKING    COMFORT.  393 

loathsome  under  the  bright  heaven,  —  an  imbruted  man. 
The  holy  harmonies  of  Nature,  the  sounds  of  gushing 
waters,  the  rustle  of  the  leaves  above  him,  the  wild 
flowers,  the  frost  bloom  of  the  woods,  —  what  were  they 
to  him  ?  Insensible,  deaf,  and  blind,  in  the  stupor  of  a 
living  death,  he  lay  there,  literally  realizing  that  most 
bitterly  significant  Eastern  malediction  —  "  May  you  eat 
dirt!" 

In  contrasting  the  exceeding  beauty  and  harmony  of 
inanimate  Nature  with  the  human  degradation  and  de 
formity  before  me,  I  felt,  as  I  confess  I  had  never  done 
before,  the  truth  of  a  remark  of  a  rare  thinker,  thai 
"  Nature  is  loved  as  the  city  of  God,  although,  or  rather 
because,  it  has  no  citizen.  The  beauty  of  Nature  must 
ever  be  universal  and  mocking  until  the  landscape  has 
human  figures  as  good  as  itself.  Man  is  fallen ;  Nature 
is  erect."  *  As  I  turned  once  more  to  the  calm  blue  sky, 
the  hazy  autumnal  hills,  and  the  slumberous  water,  dream 
tinted  by  the  foliage  of  its  shores,  it  seemed  as  if  a  shadow 
of  shame  and  sorrow  fell  over  the  pleasant  picture ;  and 
even  the  west  wind  which  stirred  the  tree  tops  above  me 
had  a  mournful  murmur,  as  if  Nature  felt  the  desecration 
of  her  sanctities  and  the  discord  of  sin  and  folly  which 
marred  her  sweet  harmonies. 

God   bless  the  temperance   movement !     And  he  will 

*  Emerson. 


394  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

bless  it;  for  it  is  his  work.  It  is  one  of  the  great  miracles 
of  our  times.  Not  Father  Mathew  in  Ireland,  nor 
Hawkins  and  his  little  band  in  Baltimore,  but  He  whose 
care  is  over  all  the  works  of  his  hand,  and  who  in  his 
divine  love  and  compassion  "turneth  the  hearts  of  men 
as  the  rivers  of  waters  are  turned,"  hath  done  it.  To 
him  be  all  the  glory. 


THE   BEAUTIFUL. 

'•A  beautiful  form  is  better  than  a  beautiful  face  ;  a  beautiful  be 
havior  is  better  than  a  beautiful  form  ;  it  gives  a  higher  pleasure  than 
statues  or  pictures  ;  it  is  the  finest  of  the  fine  arts." 

Em&'son's  Essays,  Second  Series,  iv.,  p.  162. 

A  FEW  days  since  I  was  walking  with  a  friend,  who, 
unfortunately  for  himself,  seldom  meets  with  any  thing  in 
the  world  of  realities  worthy  of  comparison  with  the  ideal 
of  his  fancy,  which,  like  the  bird  in  the  Arabian  tale, 
glides  perpetually  before  him,  always  near,  yet  never 
overtaken.  He  was  half  humorously,  half  seriously,  com 
plaining  of  the  lack  of  beauty  in  the  faces  and  forms  that 
passed  us  on  the  crowded  sidewalk.  Some  defect  was 
noticeable  in  all :  one  was  too  heavy,  another  too  angular  ; 
here  a  nose  was  at  fault,  there  a  mouth  put  a  set  of 
otherwise  fine  features  out  of  countenance  ;  the  fair  com 
plexions  had  red  hair,  and  glossy  black  locks  were  wasted 
upon  dingy  ones.  In  one  way  or  another  all  fell  below 
his  impossible  standard. 

The  beauty  which  my  friend  seemed  in  search  of  was 

(395) 


396  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

that  of  proportion  and  coloring  ;  mechanical  exactness ;  a 
due  combination  of  soft  curves  and  obtuse  angles,  of  warm 
carnation  and  marble  purity.  Such  a  man,  for  aught  I 
can  see,  might  love  a  graven  image  like  the  girl  of  Flor 
ence,  who  pined  into  a  shadow  for  the  Apollo  Belvidere. 
looking  coldly  on  her  with  stony  eyes  from  his  niche  in 
the  Vatican.  One  thing  is  certain  —  he  will  never  find  his 
faultless  piece  of  artistical  perfection  by  searching  for  it 
amidst  flesh-and-blood  realities.  Nature  does  not,  as  far 
as  I  can  perceive,  work  with  square  and  compass,  or  lay 
on  her  colors  by  the  rules  of  royal  artists  or  the  dunces 
of  the  academies.  She  eschews  regular  outlines.  She 
does  not  shape  her  forms  by  a  common  model.  Not  one 
of  Eve's  numerous  progeny  in  all  respects  resembles 
her  who  first  culled  the  flowers  of  Eden.  To  the  infi 
nite  variety  and  picturesque  inequality  of  Nature  we 
owe  the  great  charm  of  her  uncloying  beauty.  Look  at 
her  primitive  woods ;  scattered  trees,  with  moist  sward 
and  bright  mosses  at  their  roots ;  great  clumps  of  green 
shadow,  where  limb  intwists  with  limb  and  the  rustle  of 
one  leaf  stirs  a  hundred  others  —  stretching  up  steep  hill 
sides,  flooding  with  green  beauty  the  valleys,  or  arching 
over  with  leaves  the  sharp  ravines,  every  tree  and  shrub 
unlike  its  neighbor  in  size  and  proportion  —  the  old  and 
storm  broken  leaning  on  the  young  and  vigorous  — intricate 
and  confused,  without  order  or  method.  Who  would 


THE    BEAUTIFUL.  397 

exchange  this  for  artificial  French  gardens,  where  every 
tree  stands  stiff  and  regular,  clipped  and  trimmed  into 
unvarying  conformity  like  so  many  grenadiers  under 
review  ?  Who  wants  eternal  sunshine  or  shadow  ?  "Who 
would  fix  forever  the  loveliest  cloudwork  of  an  autumn 
sunset,  or  hang  over  him  an  everlasting  moonlight  ?  If 
the  stream  had  no  quiet  eddying  place,  could  we  so  admire 
its  cascade  over  the  rocks  ?  Were  there  no  clouds,  could 
we  so  hail  the  sky  shining  through  them  in  its  still,  calm 
purity?  Who  shall  venture  to  ask  our  kind  Mother 
Nature  to  remove  from  our  sight  any  one  of  her  forms  or 
colors  ?  Who  shall  decide  which  is  beautiful,  or  other 
wise,  in  itself  considered  ? 

There  are  too  many,  like  my  fastidious  friend,  who  go 
through  the  world  "  from  Dan  to  Beersheba,  finding  all 
barren "  —  who  have  always  some  fault  or  other  to  find 
with  Nature  and  Providence,  seeming  to  consider  them 
selves  especially  ill  used  because  the  one  does  not  always 
coincide  with  their  taste,  nor  the  other  with  their  narrow 
notions  of  personal  convenience.  In  one  of  his  early 
poems,  Coleridge  has  well  expressed  a  truth,  which  is  not 
the  less  important  because  it  is  not  generally  admitted. 
The  idea  is  briefly  this :  that  the  mind  gives  to  all  things 
their  coloring,  their  gloom,  or  gladness ;  that  the  pleasure 
we  derive  from  external  nature  is  primarily  from  our 
selves  :  — 


393  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

" from  the  mind  itself  must  issue  forth 

A  light,  a  glory,  a  fair  luminous  mist, 
Enveloping  the  earth." 

The  real  difficulty  of  these  lifelong  hunters  after  the 
beautiful  exists  in  their  own  spirits.  They  set  up  certain 
models  of  perfection  in  their  imaginations,  and  then  go 
about  the  world  in  the  vain  expectation  of  finding  them 
actually  wrought  out  according  to  pattern ;  very  unreason 
ably  calculating  that  Nature  will  suspend  her  everlasting 
laws  for  the  purpose  of  creating  faultless  prodigies  for 
their  especial  gratification. 

The  authors  of  Gayeties  and  Gravities  give  it  as  their 
opinion  that  no  object  of  sight  is  regarded  by  us  as  a 
simple,  disconnected  form,  but  that  an  instantaneous  reflec 
tion  as  to  its  history,  purpose,  or  associations  converts  it 
into  a  concrete  one  —  a  process,  they  shrewdly  remark, 
which  no  thinking  being  can  prevent,  and  which  can  only 
be  avoided  by  the  unmeaning  and  stolid  stare  of  "  a  goose 
on  the  common  or  a  cow  on  the  green."  The  senses  and 
the  faculties  of  the  understanding  are  so  blended  with 
and  dependent  upon  each  other  that  not  one  of  them  can 
exercise  its  office  alone  and  without  the  modification  of 
some  extrinsic  interference  or  suggestion.  Grateful  or 
unpleasant  associations  cluster  around  all  which  sense 
takes  cognizance  of;  the  beauty  which  we  discern  in  an  ex 
ternal  object  is  often  but  the  reflection  of  our  own  minds. 


THE    BEAUTIFUL.  399 

What  is  beauty,  after  all  ?  Ask  the  lover  who  kneels 
in  homage  to  one  who  has  no  attractions  for  others.  The 
cold  onlooker  wonders  that  he  can  call  that  unclassic 
combination  of  features  and  that  awkward  form  beautiful. 
Yet  so  it  is.  He  sees,  like  Desdemona,  her  "  visage  in 
her  mind,"  or  her  affections.  A  light  from  within  shines 
through  the  external  uncomeliness  —  softens,  irradiates, 
and  glorifies  it.  That  which  to  others  seems  common 
place  and  unworthy  of  note,  is  to  him,  in  the  words  of 
Spenser,  — 

"  A  sweet,  attractive  kind  of  grace ; 

A  full  assurance  given  by  looks ; 
Continual  comfort  in  a  face ; 
The  lineaments  of  gospel  books." 

"Handsome  is  that  handsome  does  —  hold  up  your 
heads,  girls  ! "  was  the  language  of  Primrose  in  the  play 
when  addressing  her  daughters.  The  worthy  matron 
was  right.  Would  that  all  my  female  readers  who  are 
sorrowing  foolishly  because  they  are  not  in  all  respects 
like  Dubufe's  Eve,  or  that  statue  of  the  Venus  "  which 
enchants  the  world,"  could  be  persuaded  to  listen  to  her. 
What  is  good  looking,  as  Horace  Smith  remarks,  but 
looking  good  ?  Be  good,  be  womanly,  be  gentle  —  gen 
erous  in  your  sympathies,  heedful  of  the  well  being  of  all 
around  you ;  and,  my  word  for  it,  you  will  not  lack  kind 
words  of  admiration.  Loving  and  pleasant  associations 


400  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

will  gather  about  you.  Never  mind  the  ugly  reflection 
which  your  glass  may  give  you.  That  mirror  has  no 
heart.  But  quite  another  picture  is  yours  on  the  retina 
of  human  sympathy.  There  the  beauty  of  holiness,  of 
purity,  of  that  inward  grace  "  which  passeth  show,"  rests 
over  it,  softening  and  mellowing  its  features  just  as  the 
full,  calm  moonlight  melts  those  of  a  rough  landscape  into 
harmonious  loveliness.  "  Hold  up  your  heads,  girls  ! " 
I  repeat  after  Primrose.  Why  should  you  not  ?  Every 
mother's  daughter  of  you  can  be  beautiful.  You  can 
envelop  yourselves  in  an  atmosphere  of  moral  and  intel 
lectual  beauty,  through  which  your  otherwise  plain  faces 
will  look  forth  like  those  of  angels.  Beautiful  to  Led- 
yard,  stiffening  in  the  cold  of  a  northern  winter,  seemed 
the  diminutive,  smoke-stained  women  of  Lapland,  who 
wrapped  him  in  their  furs  and  ministered  to  his  neces 
sities  with  kindness  and  gentle  words  of  compassion. 
Lovely  to  the  homesick  heart  of  Park  seemed  the  dark 
maids  of  Sego,  as  they  sung  their  low  and  simple  song  of 
welcome  beside  his  bed,  and  sought  to  comfort  the  white 
stranger,  who  had  "  no  mother  to  bring  him  milk  and  no 
wife  to  grind  him  corn."  0,  talk  as  we  may  of  beauty  as 
a  thing  to  be  chiselled  from  marble  or  wrought  out  on 
canvas,  speculate  as  we  may  upon  its  colors  arid  outlines, 
what  is  it  but  an  intellectual  abstraction,  after  all  ?  The 
heart  feels  a  beauty  of  another  kind ;  looking  through  the 


THE    BEAUTIFUL.  401 

outward  environment,  it  discovers  a  deeper  and  more  real 
loveliness. 

This  was  well  understood  by  the  old  painters.  In  their 
pictures  of  Mary,  the  virgin  mother,  the  beauty  which 
melts  and  subdues  the  gazer  is  that  of  the  soul  and  the 
affections,  uniting  the  awe  and  mystery  of  that  mother's 
miraculous  allotment  with  the  irrepressible  love,  the 
unutterable  tenderness,  of  young  maternity  —  Heaven's 
crowning  miracle  with  Nature's  holiest  and  sweetest  in 
stinct.  And  their  pale  Magdalens,  holy  with  the  look  of 
sins  forgiven, — how  the  divine  beauty  of  their  penitence 
sinks  into  the  heart  ?  Do  we  not  feel  that  the  only  real 
deformity  is  sin,  and  that  goodness  evermore  hallows  and 
sanctifies  its  dwelling-place?  When  the  soul  is  at  rest, 
when  the  passions  and  desires  are  all  attuned  to  the 
divine  harmony, — 

"  Spirits  moving  musically 
To  a  lute's  well-ordered  law,"  * 

do  we  not  read  the  placid  significance  thereof  in  the  human 
countenance  ?  "I  have  seen,"  said  Charles  Lamb,  "faces 
upon  which  the  dove  of  peace  sat  brooding."  In  that 
simple  and  beautiful  record  of  a  holy  life,  the  Journal  of 
John  Woolman,  there  is  a  passage  of  which  I  have  been 

*  The  Haunted  Palace,  by  Edgar  A.  Poe. 
26 


402  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

more  than  once  reminded  in  my  intercourse  with  my 
fellow-beings :  "  Some  glances  of  real  beauty  may  be  seen 
in  their  faces  who  dwell  in  true  meekness.  There  is  a 
harmony  in  the  sound  of  that  voice  to  which  divine  love 
gives  utterance." 

Quite  the  ugliest  face  I  ever  saw  was  that  of  a  woman 
whom  the  world  calls  beautiful.  Through  its  "silver 
veil"  the  evil  and  ungentle  passions  looked  out  hideous 
and  hateful.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  faces  which 
the  multitude  at  the  first  glance  pronounce  homely,  un 
attractive,  and  such  as  "  Nature  fashions  by  the  gross," 
which  I  always  recognize  with  a  warm  heart  thrill ;  not 
for  the  world  would  I  have  one  feature  changed ;  they 
please  me  as  they  are ;  they  are  hallowed  by  kind  memo 
ries  ;  they  are  beautiful  through  their  associations ;  nor 
are  they  any  the  less  welcome  that  with  my  admiration 
of  them  "  the  stranger  intermeddleth  not." 


THE   LIGHTING   UP. 

"  He  spak  to  the  spynnsters  to  spynnen  it  oute." 

Piers  Ploughman. 

THIS  evening,  the  20th  of  the  ninth  month,  is  the  time 
fixed  upon  for  lighting  the  mills  for  night  labor ;  and  I 
have  just  returned  from  witnessing  for  the  first  time  the 
effect  of  the  new  illumination. 

Passing  over  the  bridge,  nearly  to  the  Dracut  shore,  I 
had  a  fine  view  of  the  long  line  of  mills,  the  city  beyond, 
and  the  broad  sweep  of  the  river  from  the  falls.  The 
light  of  a  tranquil  and  gorgeous  sunset  was  slowly  fading 
from  river  and  sky,  and  the  shadows  of  the  trees  on  the 
Dracut  slopes  were  blending  in  dusky  indistinctness  with 
the  great  shadow  of  night.  Suddenly  gleams  of  light 
broke  from  the  black  masses  of  masonry  on  the  Lowell 
bank,  at  first  feeble  and  scattered,  flitting  from  window 
to  window,  appearing  and  disappearing,  like  will-o'-wisps 
in  a  forest  or  fireflies  in  a  summer's  night.  Anon  tier 
after  tier  of  windows  became  radiant,  until  the  whole  vast 

(403) 


404  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

wall,  stretching  far  up  the  river,  from  basement  to  roof, 
became  checkered  with  light  reflected  with  the  starbeams 
from  the  still  water  beneath.  With  a  little  effort  of  fancy, 
one  could  readily  transform  the  huge  mills,  thus  illumi 
nated,  into  palaces  lighted  up  for  festival  occasions,  and 
the  figures  of  the  workers,  passing  to  and  fro  before  the 
windows,  into  forms  of  beauty  and  fashion,  moving  in 
graceful  dances. 

Alas  !  this  music  of  the  shuttle  and  the  daylong  dance 
to  it  are  not  altogether  of  the  kind  which  Milton  speaks 
of  when  he  invokes  the  "  soft  Lydian  airs  "  of  voluptuous 
leisure.  From  this  time  henceforward  for  half  a  weary 
year,  from  the  bell  call  of  morning  twilight  to  half  past 
seven  in  the  evening,  with  brief  intermissions  for  two 
hasty  meals,  the  operatives  will  be  confined  to  their  tasks. 
The  proverbial  facility  of  the  Yankees  in  despatching  their 
dinners  in  the  least  possible  time  seems  to  have  been 
taken  advantage  of  and  reduced  to  a  system  on  the  Lowell 
corporations.  Strange  as  it  may  seem  to  the  uninitiated, 
the  working  men  and  women  here  contrive  to  repair  to 
their  lodgings,  make  the  necessary  preliminary  ablutions, 
devour  their  beef  and  pudding,  and  hurry  back  to  their 
looms  and  jacks  in  the  brief  space  of  half  an'  hour.  In 
this  way  the  working  day  in  Lowell  is  eked  out  to  an 
average  throughout  the  year  of  twelve  and  a  half  hours. 
This  is  a  serious  evil,  demanding  the  earnest  consideration 


THE   LIGHTING   UP.  405 

of  the  humane  and  philanthropic.  Both  classes  —  the 
employer  and  the  employed — would  in  the  end  be  greatly 
benefited  by  the  general  adoption  of  the  "  ten-hour  sys 
tem,"  although  the  one  might  suffer  a  slight  diminution  in 
daily  wages  and  the  other  in  yearly  profits.  Yet  it  is 
difficult  to  see  how  this  most  desirable  change  is  to  be 
effected.  The  stronger  and  healthier  portion  of  the  oper 
atives  might  themselves  object  to  it  as  strenuously  as  the 
distant  stockholder  who  looks  only  to  his  semi-annual 
dividends.  Health  is  too  often  a  matter  of  secondary 
consideration.  Gain  is  the  great,  all-absorbing  object. 
Very  few,  comparatively,  regard  Lowell  as  their  "  con 
tinuing  city."  They  look  longingly  back  to  green  valleys 
of  Vermont,  to  quiet  farm  houses  on  the  head  waters  of 
the  Connecticut  and  Merrimac,  and  to  old  familiar  homes 
along  the  breezy  sea  board  of  New  England,  whence  they 
have  been  urged  by  the  knowledge  that  here  they  can 
earn  a  larger  amount  of  money  in  a  given  time  than  in 
any  other  place  or  employment.  They  come  here  for 
gain,  not  for  pleasure ;  for  high  wages,  not  for  the  com 
forts  that  cluster  about  home.  Here  are  poor  widows 
toiling  to  educate  their  children ;  daughters  hoarding  their 
wages  to  redeem  mortgaged  paternal  homesteads  or  to 
defray  the  expenses  of  sick  and  infirm  parents ;  young 
betrothed  girls,  about  to  add  their  savings  to  those  of  their 
country  lovers.  Others  there  are,  of  maturer  age,  lonely 


40G  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

and  poor,  impelled  hither  by  a  proud  unwillingness  to  te?t 
to  its  extent  the  charity  of  friends  and  relatives,  and  a 
strong  yearning  for  the  "  glorious  privilege  of  being  inde 
pendent."  All  honor  to  them  !  Whatever  may  have 
closed  against  them  the  gates  of  matrimony,  whether  their 
own  obduracy  or  the  faithlessness  or  indifference  of  others, 
instead  of  shutting  themselves  up  in  a  nunnery  or  taxing 
the  good  nature  of  their  friends  by  perpetual  demands  for 
sympathy  and  support,  like  weak  vines,  putting  out  their 
feelers  in  every  direction  for  something  to  twine  upon, 
is  it  not  better  and  wiser  for  them  to  go  quietly  at  work, 
to  show  that  woman  has  a  self-sustaining  power ;  that  she 
is  something  in  and  of  herself;  that  she,  too,  has  a  part 
to  bear  in  life,  and,  in  common  with  the  self-elected  "  lords 
of  creation,"  has  a  direct  relation  to  absolute  being?  To 
such  the  factory  presents  the  opportunity  of  taking  the 
first  and  essential  step  of  securing,  within  a  reasonable 
space  of  time,  a  comfortable  competency. 

There  are  undoubtedly  many  evils  connected  with  the 
working  of  these  mills  ;  yet  they  are  partly  compensated 
by  the  fact  that  here,  more  than  in  any  other  mechanical 
employment,  the  labor  of  woman  is  placed  essentially  upon 
an  equality  with  that  of  man.  Here,  at  least,  one  of  the 
many  social  disabilities  under  which  woman  as  a  distinct 
individual,  unconnected  with  the  other  sex,  has  labored  in 
all  time,  is  removed ;  the  work  of  her  hands  is  adequately  ' 


THE    LIGHTING   UP.  407 

rewarded ;  and  she  goes  to  her  daily  task  with  the  con 
sciousness  that  she  is  not  "spending  her  strength  for 
nought." 

The  Lowell  Offering,  which  has  been  for  the  last  four 
years  published  monthly  in  this  city,  consisting  entirely 
of  articles  written  by  females  employed  in  the  mills,  has 
attracted  much  attention  and  obtained  a  wide  circulation. 
This  may  be  in  part  owing  to  the  novel  circumstances  of 
its  publication  ;  but  it  is  something  more  and  better  than 
a  mere  novelty.  In  its  volumes  may  be  found  sprightly 
delineations  of  home  scenes  and  characters,  highly-wrought 
imaginative  pieces,  tales  of  genuine  pathos  and  humor,  and 
pleasing  fairy  stories  and  fables.  The  Offering  originated 
in  a  reading  society  of  the  mill  girls,  which,  under  the 
name  of  the  Improvement  Circle,  was  convened  once  in  a 
month.  At  its  meetings,  pieces,  written  by  its  members 
and  dropped  secretly  into  a  sort  of  "  lion's  mouth,"  pro 
vided  for  the  purpose  of  insuring  the  authors  from  detec 
tion,  were  read  for  the  amusement  and  criticism  of  the 
company.  This  circle  is  still  in  existence ;  and  I  owe  to 
my  introduction  to  it  some  of  the  most  pleasant  hours  I 
have  passed  in  Lowell. 

The  manner  in  which  the  Offering  has  been  generally 
noticed  in  this  country  has  not,  to  my  thinking,  been 
altogether  in  accordance  with  good  taste  or  self-respect. 
It  is  hardly  excusable  for  men,  who,  whatever  may  be  their 


408  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

present  position,  have,  in  common  with  all  of  us,  brothers, 
sisters,  or  other  relations  busy  in  workshop  and  dairy,  and 
who  have  scarcely  washed  from  their  own  professional 
hands  the  soil  of  labor,  to  make  very  marked  demonstra 
tions  of  astonishment  at  the  appearance  of  a  magazine 
whose  papers  are  written  by  factory  girls.  As  if  the  com 
patibility  of  mental  cultivation  with  bodily  labor  and  the 
equality  and  brotherhood  of  the  human  family  were  still 
open  questions,  depending  for  their  decision  very  much  on 
the  production  of  positive  proof  that  essays  may  be  written 
and.  carpets  woven  by  the  same  set  of  fingers  ! 

The  truth  is,  our  democracy  lacks  calmness  and 
solidity,  the  repose  and  self-reliance  which  come  of 
long  habitude  and  settled  conviction.  We  have  not  yet 
learned  to  wear  its  simple  truths  with  the  graceful  ease 
and  quiet  air  of  unsolicitous  assurance  with  which  the 
titled  European  does  his  social  fictions.  As  a  people, 
we  do  not  feel  and  live  out  pur  great  Declaration.  We 
lack  faith  in  man  —  confidence  in  simple  humanity,  apart 
from  its  environments. 

"  The  age  shows,  to  my  thinking,  more  infidels  to  Adam, 
Than  directly,  by  profession,  simple  infidels  to  God."  * 

*  Elizabeth  B.  Browning. 


THE   SCOTTISH  REFORMERS. 

"  The  mills  of  God  grind  slowly,  but  they  grind  exceeding  small ; 
Though  with  patience  he  stands  waiting,  with  exactness  grinds  he 
all."  Frederick  von  Logau. 

THE  great  impulse  of  the  French  revolution  was  not 
confined  by  geographical  boundaries.  Flashing  hope  into 
the  dark  places  of  the  earth,  far  down  among  the  poor 
and*  long  oppressed,  or  startling  the  oppressor  in  his 
guarded  chambers  like  that  mountain  of  fire  which  fell 
into  the  sea  at  the  sound  of  the  apocalyptic  trumpet,  it 
agitated  the  world. 

The  arguments  of  Condorcet,  the  battle  words  of  Mira- 
beau,  the  fierce  zeal  of  St.  Just,  the  iron  energy  of  Danton, 
the  caustic  wit  of  Camille  Desmoulins,  and  the  sweet 
eloquence  of  Vergniaud  found  echoes  in  all  lands,  and  no 
where  more  readily  than  in  Great  Britain,  the  ancient  foe 
and  rival  of  France.  The  celebrated  Dr.  Price,  of  Lon 
don,  and  the  still  more  distinguished  Priestley,  of  Birming 
ham,  spoke  out  boldly  in  defence  of  the  great  principles 

(409) 


410  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

of  the  revolution.  A  London  club  of  reformers,  reckoning 
among  its  members  such  men  as  Sir  William  Jones,  Earl 
Grey,  Samuel  Whitbread,  and  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  was 
established  for  the  purpose  of  disseminating  liberal  appeals 
and  arguments  throughout  the  United  Kingdom. 

In  Scotland  an  auxiliary  society  was  formed,  under  the 
name  of  Friends  of  the  People.  Thomas  Muir,  young 
in  years,  yet  an  elder  in  the  Scottish  kirk,  a  successful 
advocate  at  the  bar,  talented,  affable,  eloquent,  and  dis 
tinguished  for  the  purity  of  his  life  and  his  enthusiasm  in 
the  cause  of  Freedom,  was  its  principal  originator.  In 
the  twelfth  month  of  1792  a  convention  of  reformers  was 
held  at  Edinburgh.  The  government  became  alarmed, 
and  a  warrant  was  issued  for  the  arrest  of  Muir.  He 
escaped  to  France  ;  but  soon  after,  venturing  to  return  to 
his  native  land,  was  recognized  and  imprisoned.  He  was 
tried  upon  the  charge  of  lending  books  of  republican 
tendency  and  reading  an  address  from  Theobald  Wolf 
Tone  and  the  United  Irishmen  before  the  society  of  which 
he  was  a  member.  He  defended  himself  in  a  long  and 
eloquent  address,  which  concluded  in  the  following  manly 
strain :  — 

"  What,  then,  has  been  my  crime  ?  Not  the  lending  to 
a  relation  a  copy  of  Thomas  Paine's  works  —  not  the 
giving  away  to  another  a  few  numbers  of  an  innocent  and 
constitutional  publication;  but  my  crime  is,  for  having 


THE    SCOTTISH   REFORMERS.  411 

dared  to  be,  according  to  the  measure  of  my  feeble  abili 
ties,  a  strenuous  and  an  active  advocate  for  an  equal 
representation  of  the  people  in  the  house  of  the  people  — 
for  having  dared  to  accomplish  a  measure  by  legal  means 
which  was  to  diminish  the  weight  of  their  taxes  and  to 
put  an  end  to  the  profusion  of  their  blood.  Gentlemen, 
from  my  infancy  to  tin's  moment  I  have  devoted  myself 
to  the  cause  of  the  people.  It  is  a  good  cause  —  it  will 
ultimately  prevail  —  it  will  finally  triumph." 

He  was  sentenced  to  transportation  for  fourteen  years, 
and  was  removed  to  the  Edinburgh  jail,  from  thence  to  the 
hulks,  and  lastly  to  the  transport  ship,  containing  eighty- 
three  convicts,  which  conveyed  him  to  Botany  Bay. 

The  next  victim  was  Palmer,  a  learned  and  highly 
accomplished  Unitarian  minister  in  Dundee.  He  was 
greatly  beloved  and  respected  as  a  polished  gentleman 
and  sincere  friend  of  the  people.  He  was  charged  with 
circulating  a  republican  tract,  and  was  sentenced  to  seven 
years'  transportation. 

But  the  friends  of  the  people  were  not  quelled  by  this 
summary  punishment  of  two  of  their  devoted  leaders.  In 
the  tenth  month,  1793,  delegates  were  called  together 
from  various  towns  in  Scotland,  as  well  as  from  Birming 
ham,  Sheffield,  and  other  places  in  England.  Gerrald 
and  Margaret  were  sen!  up  by  the  London  society.  After 
a  brief  sitting,  the  convention  was  dispersed  by  the  public 


412  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

authorities.  Its  sessions  were  opened  and  closed  with 
prayer,  and  the  speeches  of  its  members  manifested  the 
pious  enthusiasm  of  the  old  Cameronians  and  Parliament 
men  of  the  times  of  Cromwell.  Many  of  the  dissenting 
clergy  were  present.  William  Skirving,  the  most  deter 
mined  of  the  band,  had  been  educated  for  the  ministry, 
and  was  a  sincerely  religious  man.  Joseph  Gerrald  was 
a  young  man  of  brilliant  talents  and  exemplary  character. 
When  the  sheriff  entered  the  hall  to  disperse  the  friends  of 
liberty,  Gerrald  knelt  in  prayer.  His  remarkable  words 
were  taken  down  by  a  reporter  on  the  spot.  There  is 
nothing  in  modern  history  to  compare  with  this  supplica 
tion,  unless  it  be  that  of  Sir  Henry  Vane,  a  kindred 
martyr,  at  the  foot  of  the  scaffold,  just  before  his  execu 
tion.  It  is  the  prayer  of  universal  humanity,  which  God 
will  yet  hear  and  answer. 

"  0  thou  Governor  of  the  universe,  we  rejoice  that,  at 
all  times  and  in  all  circumstances,  we  have  liberty  to 
approach  thy  throne,  and  that  we  are  assured  that  no 
sacrifice  is  more  acceptable  to  thee  than  that  which  is 
made  for  the  relief  of  the  oppressed.  In  this  moment  of 
trial  and  persecution  we  pray  that  thou  wouldst  be  our 
defender,  our  counsellor,  and  our  guide.  O,  be  thou  a  pillar 
of  fire  to  us,  as  thou  wast  to  our  fathers  of  old,  to  enlighten 
and  direct  us;  and  to  our  enemies  a  pillar  of  cloud,  and 
darkness,  and  confusion. 


THE    SCOTTISH    REFORMERS.  413 

« Thou  art  thyself  the  great  Patron  of  liberty.  Thy 
service  is  perfect  freedom.  Prosper,  we  beseech  thee, 
every  endeavor  which  we  make  to  promote  thy  cause ;  for 
we  consider  the  cause  of  truth,  or  every  cause  which  tends 
to  promote  the  happiness  of  thy  creatures,  as  thy  cause. 

"  0  thou  merciful  Father  of  mankind,  enable  us,  for  thy 
name's  sake,  to  endure  persecution  with  fortitude;  and 
may  we  believe  that  all  trials  and  tribulations  of  life 
which  vvre  endure  shall  work  together  for  good  to  them 
that  love  thee ;  and  grant  that  the  greater  the  evil,  and 
the  longer  it  may  be  continued,  the  greater  good,  in  thy 
holy  and  adorable  providence,  may  be  produced  there 
from.  And  this  we  beg,  not  for  our  own  merits,  but 
through  the  merits  of  Him  who  is  hereafter  to  judge  the 
world  in  righteousness  and  mercy." 

He  ceased,  and  the  sheriff,  who  had  been  temporarily 
overawed  by  the  extraordinary  scene,  enforced  the  war 
rant,  and  the  meeting  was  broken  up.  The  delegates 
descended  to  the  street  in  silence,  —  Arthur's  Seat  and 
Salisbury  crags  glooming  in  the  distance  and  night,  —  an 
immense  and  agitated  multitude  waiting,  around,  over 
which  tossed  the  flaring  flambeaux  of  the  sheriff's  train. 
Gerrald,  who  was  already  under  arrest,  as  he  descended 
spoke  aloud,  "  Behold  the  funeral  torches  of  Liberty ! " 

Skirving  and  several  others  were  immediately  arrested. 
They  were  tried  in  the  first  month,  1794,  and  sentenced, 


414  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

as  Muir  and  Palmer  had  previously  been,  to  transporta 
tion.  Their  conduct  throughout  was  worthy  of  their  great 
and  holy  cause.  Gerrald's  defence  was  that  of  Freedom 
rather  than  his  own.  Forgetting  himself,  he  spoke  out 
manfully  and  earnestly  for  the  poor,  the  oppressed,  the 
overtaxed,  and  starving  millions  of  his  countrymen.  That 
some  idea  may  be  formed  of  this  noble  plea  for  liberty,  I 
give  an  extract  from  the  concluding  paragraphs  :  — 

"True  religion,  like  all  free  governments,  appeals  to 
the  understanding  for  its  support,  and  not  to  the  sword. 
All  systems,  whether  civil  or  moral,  can  only  be  durable 
in  proportion  as  they  are  founded  on  truth  and  calculated 
to  promote  the  good  of  mankind.  This  will  account  to 
us  why  governments  suited  to  the  great  energies  of  man 
have  always  outlived  the  perishable  things  which  despot 
ism  has  erected.  Yes,  this  will  account  to  us  why  the 
stream  of  Time,  which  is  continually  washing  away  the 
dissoluble  fabrics  of  superstitions  and  impostures,  passes 
without  injury  by  the  adamant  of  Christianity. 

"  Those  who  are  versed  in  the  history  of  their  country, 
in  the  history  of  the  human  race,  must  know  that  rigorous 
state  prosecutions  have  always  preceded  the  era  of  con 
vulsion  ;  and  this  era,  I  fear,  will  be  accelerated  by  the 
folly  and  madness  of  our  rulers.  If  the  people  are  discon 
tented,  the  proper  mode  of  quieting  their  discontent  is,  not 
by  instituting  rigorous  and  sanguinary  prosecutions,  but 


THE    SCOTTISH   REFORMERS.  415 

by  redressing  their  wrongs  and  conciliating  their  affec 
tions.  Courts  of  justice,  indeed,  may  be  called  in  to  the 
aid  of  ministerial  vengeance ;  but,  if  once  the  purity  of 
their  proceedings  is  suspected,  they  will  cease  to  be  objects 
of  reverence  to  the  nation;  they  will  degenerate  into 
empty  and  expensive  pageantry,  and  become  the  partial 
instruments  of  vexatious  oppression.  Whatever  may  be 
come  of  me,  my  principles  will  last  forever.  Individuals 
may  perish;  but  truth  is  eternal.  The  rude  blasts  of 
tyranny  may  blow  from  every  quarter;  but  freedom  is 
that  hardy  plant  which  will  survive  the  tempest  and  strike 
an  everlasting  root  into  the  most  unfavorable  soil. 

"  Gentlemen,  I  am  in  your  hands.  About  my  life  I 
feel  not  the  slightest  anxiety :  if  it  would  promote  the 
cause,  I  would  cheerfully  make  the  sacrifice ;  for,  if  I 
perish  on  an  occasion  like  the  present,  out  of  my  ashes 
will  arise  a  flame  to  consume  the  tyrants  and  oppressors 
of  my  country." 

Years  have  passed,  and  the  generation  which  knew  the 
persecuted  reformers  has  given  place  to  another.  And 
now,  half  a  century  after  William  Skirving,  as  he  rose  to 
receive  his  sentence,  declared  to  his  judges,  "  You  may 
condemn  us  as  felons,  but  your  sentence  shall  yet  be  reversed 
by  the  people"  the  names  of  these  men  are  once  more 
familiar  to  British  lips.  The  sentence  has  been  reversed; 
the  prophecy  of  Skirving  has  become  history.  On  the 


41 G  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

21st  of  the  eighth  month,  1853,  the  corner  stone  of  a 
monument  to  the  memory  of  the  Scottish  martyrs  —  for 
which  subscriptions  had  been  received  from  such  men  as 
Lord  Holland,  the  Dukes  of  Bedford  and  Norfolk,  and  the 
Earls  of  Essex  and  Leicester  —  was  laid  with  imposing 
ceremonies  in  the  beautiful  burial-place  of  Calton  Hill, 
Edinburgh,  by  the  veteran  T-eformer  and  tribune  of  the 
people,  Joseph  Hume,  M.  P.  After  delivering  an  appro 
priate  address,  the  aged  radical  closed  the  impressive 
scene  by  reading  the  prayer  of  Joseph  Gerrald.  At  the 
banquet  which  afterwards  took  place,  and  which  was  pre 
sided  over  by  John  Dunlop,  Esq.,  addresses  were  made 
by  the  president,  and  Dr.  Ritchie,  and  by  William  Skir- 
ving,  of  Kirkaldy,  son  of  the  martyr.  The  Complete 
Suffrage  Association  of  Edinburgh,  to  the  number  of  five 
hundred,  walked  in  procession  to  Calton  Hill,  and  in  the 
open  air  proclaimed  unmolested  the  very  principles  for 
which  the  martyrs  of  the  past  century  had  suffered. 

The  account  of  this  tribute  to  the  memory  of  departed 
worth  cannot  fail  to  awaken  in  generous  hearts  emotions 
of  gratitude  towards  Him  who  has  thus  signally  vindicated 
his  truth,  showing  that  the  triumph  of  the  oppressor  is  but 
for  a  season,  and  that  even  in  this  world  a  lie  cannot  live 
forever.  Well  and  truly  did  George  Fox  say  in  his  last 
days,  "  The  truth  is  above  all" 

Will  it  be  said,  however,  that  this  tribute  comes  too 


THE    SCOTTISH   REFORMERS.  417 

late  ?  that  it  cannot  solace  those  brave  hearts  which, 
slowly  broken  by  the  long  agony  of  colonial  servitude, 
are  now  cold  in  strange  graves  ?  It  is,  indeed,  a  striking 
illustration  of  the  truth  that  he  who  would  benefit  his 
fellow-man  must  "  walk  by  faith,"  sowing  his  seed  in  the 
morning,  and  in  the  evening  withholding  not  his  hand; 
knowing  only  this,  that  in  God's  good  time  the  harvest 
shall  spring  up  and  ripen,  if  not  for  himself,  yet  for  others, 
who,  as  they  bind  the  full  sheaves  and  gather  in  the  heavy 
clusters,  may  perchance  remember  him  with  gratitude  and 
set  up  stones  of  memorial  on  the  fields  of  his  toil  and 
sacrifices.  We  may  regret  that,  in  this  stage  of  the 
spirit's  life,  the  sincere  and  self-denying  worker  is  not 
always  permitted  to  partake  of  the  fruits  of  his  toil  or 
receive  the  honors  of  a  benefactor.  We  hear  his  good 
evil  spoken  of  and  his  noblest  sacrifices  counted  as  nought; 
we  see  him  not  only  assailed  by  the  wicked,  but  dis 
countenanced  and  shunned  by  the  timidly  good,  followed 
on  his  hot  and  dusty  pathway  by  the  execrations  of  the 
hounding  mob  and  the  contemptuous  pity  of  the  worldly 
wise  and  prudent;  and  when  at  last  the  horizon  of  Time 
shuts  down  between  him  and  ourselves,  and  the  places 
which  have  known  him  know  him  no  more  forever,  we 
are  almost  ready  to  say  with  the  regal  voluptuary  of  old, 
"  This  also  is  vanity  and  a  great  evil ;  for  what  hath  a 
man  of  all  his  labor  and  of  the  vexation  of  his  heart 
27 


418  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

wherein  he  hath  labored  under  the  sun?"  But  is  this 
the  end  ?  Has  God's  universe  no  wider  limits  than  the 
circle  of  the  blue  wall  which  shuts  in  our  nestling-place  ? 
Has  life's  infancy  only  been  provided  for,  and  beyond  this 
poor  nursery  chamber  of  Time  is  there  no  play  ground  for 
the  soul's  youth,  no  broad  fields  for  its  manhood  ?  Per 
chance,  could  we  but  lift  the  curtains  of  the  narrow  pin 
fold  wherein  we  dwell,  we  might  see  that  our  poor  friend 
and  brother  whose  fate  we  have  thus  deplored  has  by  no 
means  lost  the  reward  of  his  labors,  but  that  in  new  fields 
of  duty  he  is  cheered  even  by  the  tardy  recognition  of  the 
value  of  his  services  in  the  old.  The  continuity  of  life  is 
never  broken ;  the  river  flows  onward  and  is  lost  to  our 
sight ;  but  under  its  new  horizon  it  carries  the  same  waters 
which  it  gathered  under  ours,  and  its  unseen  valleys  are 
made  glad  by  the  offerings  which  are  borne  down  to  them 
from  the  past  —  flowers,  perchance,  the  germs  of  which 
its  own  waves  had  planted  on  the  banks  of  Time.  Who 
shall  say  that  the  mournful  and  repentant  love  with  which 
the  benefactors  of  our  race  are  at  length  regarded  may 
not  be  to  them,  in  their  new  condition  of  being,  sweet  and 
grateful  as  the  perfume  of  long-forgotten  flowers,  or  that 
our  harvest  hymns  of  rejoicing  may  not  reach  the  ears  of 
those  who  in  weakness  and  suffering  scattered  the  seeds 
of  blessing? 

The  history  of  the  Edinburgh  reformers  is   no  new 


THE    SCOTTISH    REFORMERS.  419 

one;  it  is  that  of  all  who  seek  to  benefit  their  age  by 
rebuking  its  popular  crimes  and  exposing  its  cherished 
errors.  The  truths  which  they  told  were  not  believed, 
and  for  that  very  reason  were  the  more  needed ;  for  it  is 
evermore  the  case  that  the  right  word,  when  first  uttered, 
is  an  unpopular  and  denied  one.  Hence  he  who  under 
takes  to  tread  the  thorny  pathway  of  reform  —  who,  smitten 
with  the  love  of  truth  and  justice,  or,  indignant  in  view  of 
wrong  and  insolent  oppression,  is  rashly  inclined  to  throw 
himself  at  once  into  that  great  conflict  which  the  Persian 
seer  not  untruly  represented  as  a  war  between  light  and 
darkness  —  would  do  well  to  count  the  cost  in  the  outset. 
If  he  can  live  for  Truth  alone,  and,  cut  off  from  the  gen 
eral  sympathy,  regard  her  service  as  its  "  own  exceeding 
great  reward ; "  if  he  can  bear  to  be  counted  a  fanatic  and 
crazy  visionary  ;  if,  in  all  good  nature,  he  is  ready  to  receive 
from  the  very  objects  of  his  solicitude  abuse  and  obloquy 
in  return  for  disinterested  and  self-sacrificing  efforts  for 
their  welfare  ;  if,  with  his  purest  motives  misunderstood 
and  his  best  actions  perverted  and  distorted  into  crimes,  he 
can  still  hold  on  his  way  and  patiently  abide  the  hour  when 
"the  whirligig  of  Time  shall  bring  about  its  revenges ;" 
if,  on  the  whole,  he  is  prepared  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  sort 
of  moral  outlaw  or  social  heretic,  under  good  society's 
interdict  of  food  and  fire ;  and  if  he  is  well  assured  that 
he  can,  through  all  this,  preserve  his  cheerfulness  and 


420  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

faith  in  man,  —  let  him  gird  up  his  loins  and  go  forward 
in  God's  name.  He  is  fitted  for  his  vocation;  lie  has 
watched  all  night  by  his  armor.  Whatever  his  trial  may 
be,  he  is  prepared  ;  he  may  even  be  happily  disappointed 
in  respect  to  it;  flowers  of  unexpected  refreshing  may 
overhang  the  hedges  of  his  strait  and  narrow  way ;  but  it 
remains  to  be  true  that  he  who  serves  his  contemporaries 
in  faithfulness  and  sincerity  must  expect  no  wages  from 
their  gratitude ;  for,  as  has  been  well  said,  there  is,  after 
all,  but  one  way  of  doing  the  world  good,  and  unhappily 
that  way  the  world  does  not  like  ;  for  it  consists  in  telling 
it  the  very  thing  which  it  does  not  wish  to  hear. 

Unhappily,  in  the  case  of  the  reformer,  his  most  danger 
ous  foes  are  those  of  his  own  household.  True,  the 
world's  garden  has  become  a  desert  and  needs  renova 
tion  ;  but  is  his  own  little  nook  weedless  ?  Sin  abounds 
without ;  but  is  his  own  heart  pure  ?  While  smiting  down 
the  giants  and  dragons  which  beset  the  outward  world, 
are  there  no  evil  guests  sitting  by  his  own  hearthstone  ? 
Ambition,  envy,  self-righteousness,  impatience,  dogmatism, 
and  pride  of  opinion  stand  at  his  doorway,  ready  to  enter 
whenever  he  leaves  it  unguarded.  Then,  too,  there  is  no 
small  danger  of  failing  to  discriminate  between  a  rational 
philanthropy,  with  its  adaptation  of  means  to  ends,  and  that 
spiritual  knight  errantry  which  undertakes  the  champion 
ship  of  every  novel  project  of  reform,  scouring  the  world 


THE    SCOTTISH   REFORMERS.  421 

in  search  of  distressed  schemes  held  in  durance  by  com 
mon  sense  and  vagaries  happily  spellbound  by  ridicule. 
He  must  learn  that,  although  the  most  needful  truth  may 
be  unpopular,  it  does  not  follow  that  unpopularity  is  a 
proof  of  the  truth  of  his  doctrines  or  the  expediency  of  his 
measures.  He  must  have  the  liberality  to  admit  that  it  is 
barely  possible  for  the  public,  on  some  points,  to  be  right 
and  himself  wrong,  and  that  the  blessing  invoked  upon 
those  who  suffer  for  righteousness  is  not  available  to  such 
as  court  persecution  and  invite  contempt;  for  folly  has 
its  martyrs  as  well  as  wisdom ;  and  he  who  has  nothing 
better  to  show  of  himself  than  the  scars  and  bruises  which 
the  popular  foot  has  left  upon  him  is  not  even  sure  of 
winning  the  honors  of  martyrdom  as  some  compensation 
for  the  loss  of  dignity  and  self-respect  involved  in  the 
exhibition  of  its  pains.  To  the  reformer,  in  an  especial 
manner,  comes  home  the  truth  that  whoso  ruleth  his  own 
spirit  is  greater  than  he  who  taketh  a  city.  Patience, 
hope,  charity,  watchfulness  unto  prayer,  —  how  needful 
are  all  these  to  his  success !  Without  them  he  is  in 
danger  of  ingloriously  giving  up  his  contest  with  error  and 
prejudice  at  the  first  repulse ;  or,  with  that  spiteful  phi 
lanthropy  which  we  sometimes  witness,  taking  a  sick 
world  by  the  nose,  like  a  spoiled  child,  and  endeavoring 
to  force  down  its  throat  the  long-rejected  nostrums  pre 
pared  for  its  relief. 


422  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

What  then  ?  Shall  we,  in  view  of  these  things,  call 
back  young,  generous  spirits  just  entering  upon  the  peril 
ous  pathway  ?  God  forbid  !  Welcome,  thrice  welcome, 
rather.  Let  them  go  forward,  not  unwarned  of  the  dan 
gers  nor  unreminded  of  the  pleasures  which  belong  to  the 
service  of  humanity.  Great  is  the  consciousness  of  right. 
Sweet  is  the  answer  of  a  good  conscience.  He  who  pays 
his  wholehearted  homage  to  truth  and  duty  —  who  swears 
his  lifelong  fealty  on  their  altars,  and  rises  up  a  Nazarite 
consecrated  to  their  holy  service  —  is  not  without  his  solace 
and  enjoyment  when  to  the  eyes  of  others  he  seems  the 
most  lonely  and  miserable.  He  breathes  an  atmosphere 
which  the  multitude  know  not  of;  "a  serene  heaven 
which  they  cannot  discern  rests  over  him,  'glorious  in  its 
purity  and  stillness."  Nor  is  he  altogether  without  kindly 
human  sympathies.  All  generous  and  earnest  hearts 
which  are  brought  in  contact  with  his  own  beat  evenly 
with  it.  All  that  is  good,  and  truthful,  and  lovely  in  man, 
whenever  and  wherever  it  truly  recognizes  him,  must 
sooner  or  later  acknowledge  his  claim  to  love  and  rever 
ence.  His  faith  overcomes  all  things.  The  future  unrolls 
itself  before  him,  with  its  waving  harvest  fields  springing 
up  from  the  seed  he  is  scattering ;  and  he  looks  forward 
to  the  close  of  life  with  the  calm  confidence  of  one  who 
feels  that  he  has  not  lived  idle  and  useless,  but  with 
hopeful  heart  and  strong  arm  has  labored  with  God  and 
Nature  for  the  best. 


THE    SCOTTISH   REFORMERS.  423 

And  not  in  vain.  In  the  economy  of  God,  no  effort, 
however  small,  put  forth  for  the  right  cause,  fails  of  its 
effect.  No  voice,  however  feeble,  lifted  up  for  truth,  ever 
dies  amidst  the  confused  noises  of  time.  Through  dis 
cords  of  sin  and  sorrow,  pain  and  wrong,  it  rises  a  death 
less  melody,  whose  notes  of  wailing  are  hereafter  to  be 
changed  to  those  of  triumph  as  they  blend  with  the  great 
harmony  of  a  reconciled  universe.  The  language  of  a 
transatlantic  reformer  to  his  friends  is  then  as  true  as  it  is 
hopeful  and  cheering;  "  Triumph  is  certain.  We  have 
espoused  no  losing  cause.  In  the  body  we  may  not  join 
our  shout  with  the  victors;  but  in  spirit  we  may  even 
now.  There  is  but  an  interval  of  time  between  us  and 
the  success  at  which  we  aim.  In  all  other  respects  the 
links  of  the  chain  are  complete.  Identifying  ourselves 
with  immortal  and  immutable  principles,  we  share  both 
their  immortality  and  immutability.  The  vow  which 
unites  us  with  truth  makes  futurity  present  with  us.  Our 
being  resolves  itself  into  an  everlasting  now.  It  is  not  so 
correct  to  say  that  we  shall  be  victorious  as  that  we  are 
so.  When  we  will  in  unison  with  the  supreme  Mind,  the 
characteristics  of  his  will  become,  in  some  sort,  those  of 
ours.  What  he  has  willed  is  virtually  done.  It  may 
take  ages  to  unfold  itself;  but  the  germ  of  its  whole  history 
is  wrapped  up  in  his  determination.  When  we  make  his 
will  ours,  which  we  do  when  we  aim  at  truth,  that  upon 


424  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

which  we  are  resolved  is  done,  decided,  born.  Life  is 
in  it.  It  is ;  and  the  future  is  but  the  development  of  its 
being.  Ours,  therefore,  is  a  perpetual  triumph.  Our 
deeds  are,  all  of  them,  component  elements  of  success."  * 

*  Miall's  Essays ;  Nonconformist,  vol.  iv. 


THE  TRAINING, 

*'  Send  for  the  mUingtary." 

Cfaypoie,  in  Wivw  TVtrt. 


WHAT'S  now  in  the  wind?  Sounds  of  distant  music 
tloat  in  at  my  window  on  this  still  October  air.  Hurrying 
drum  beat,  shrill  fite  tones,  wailing  bugle  notes,  and,  by 
way  of  accompaniment,  hurrahs  from  the  urchins  on  the 
crowded  sidewalks.  Hero  come  the  citizen  soldiers,  each 
martial  foot  beating  up  the  mud  of  yesterday's  sionn  with 
the  slow,  regular,  up-and-down  movement  of  an  old-fash 
ioned  churn  dasher.  Keeping  time  with  the  feet  below, 
some  threescore  of  plumed  heads  bob  solemnly  beneath 
me.  Slant  sunshine  glitters  on  polished  gun  barrels  and 
tinselled  uniform.  Gravely  and  soberly  they  pass  on,  as 
if  duly  impressed  with  a  sense  of  the  deep  responsibility 
of  their  position  as  self-constituted  defenders  of  the 
world's  last  hope  —  the  United  States  of  America,  and 
possibly  Texas.  They  look  out  with  honest,  citizen  faces 
under  their  leathern  visors,  (their  ferocity  being  mostly 

(123) 


426  RECREATIONS   AND    MISCELLANIES. 

the  work  of  the  tailor  and  tinker,)  and,  I  doubt  not,  are  at 
this  moment  as  innocent  of  bloodthirstiness  as  yonder 
worthy  tiller  of  the  Tewksbury  hills  who  sits  quietly  in 
his  wagon  dispensing  apples  and  turnips  without  so  much 
as  giving  a  glance  at  the  procession.  Probably  there  is 
not  one  of  them  who  would  hesitate  to  divide  his  last 
tobacco  quid  with  his  worst  enemy.  Social,  kindhearted, 
psalm-singing,  sermon-hearing,  Sabbath-keeping  Chris 
tians  ;  and  yet,  if  we  look  at  the  fact  of  the  matter,  these 
very  men  have  been  out  the  whole  afternoon  of  this 
beautiful  day,  under  God's  holy  sunshine,  as  busily  at 
work  as  Satan  himself  could  wish  in  learning  how  to 
butcher  their  fellow-creatures  and  acquire  the  true  scien 
tific  method  of  impaling  a  forlorn  Mexican  on  a  bayonet, 
or  of  sinking  a  leaden  missile  in  the  brain  of  some  un 
fortunate  Briton,  urged  within  its  range  by  the  double 
incentive  of  sixpence  per  day  in  his  pocket  and  the  cat- 
o'-nine-tails  on  his  back ! 

Without  intending  any  disparagement  of  my  peaceable 
ancestry  for  many  generations,  I  have  still  strong  sus 
picions  that  somewhat  of  the  old  Norman  blood,  some 
thing  of  the  grim  Berserker  spirit,  has  been  bequeathed 
to  me.  How  else  can  I  account  for  the  intense  childish 
eagerness  with  which  I  listened  to  the  stories  of  old  cam 
paigners  who  sometimes  fought  their  battles  over  again 
in  my  hearing  ?  Why  did  I,  in  my  young  fancy,  go  up 


THE    TRAINING.  427 

with  Jonathan,  the  son  of  Saul,  to  smite  the  garrisoned 
Philistines  of  Michmash,  or  with  the  fierce  son  of  Nun 
against  the  cities  of  Canaan  ?  "Why  was  Mr.  Greatheart, 
in  Pilgrim's  Progress,  my  favorite  character?  "What 
gave  such  fascination  to  the  narrative  of  the  grand  Ho 
meric  encounter  between  Christian  and  Apollyon  in  the 
valley  ?  Why  did  I  follow  Ossian  over  Morven's  battle 
fields,  exulting  in  the  vulture  screams  of  the  blind  scald 
over  his  fallen  enemies  ?  Still  later,  why  did  the  news 
papers  furnish  me  with  subjects  for  hero  worship  in  the 
half-demented  Sir  Gregor  McGregor,  and  Ypsilanti  at 
the  head  of  his  knavish  Greeks  ?  I  can  account  for  it 
only  on  the  supposition  that  the  mischief  was  inherited  — 
an  heirloom  from  the  old  sea  kings  of  the  ninth  century. 

Education  and  reflection,  have  indeed,  since  wrought  a 
change  in  my  feelings.  The  trumpet  of  the  Cid,  or  Ziska's 
drum  even,  could  not  now  waken  that  old  martial  spirit. 
The  bulldog  ferocity  of  a  half-intoxicated  Anglo-Saxon, 
pushing  his  blind  way  against  the  converging  cannon  fire 
from  the  shattered  walls  of  Ciudad  Rodrigo,  commends 
itself  neither  to  my  reason  nor  my  fancy.  I  now  regard 
the  accounts  of  the  bloody  passage  of  the  Bridge  of  Lodi, 
and  of  French  cuirassiers  madly  transfixing  themselves 
upon  the  bayonets  of  Wellington's  squares,  with  very 
much  the  same  feeling  of  horror  and  loathing  which  is 
excited  by  a  detail  of  the  exploits  of  an  Indian  Thug,  or 


428  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

those  of  a  mad  Malay  running  a  muck,  creese  in  Land, 
through  the  streets  of  PuloPenang.  Your  "Waterloo,  and 
battles  of  the  Nile  and  Baltic,  —  what  are  they,  in  sober 
fact,  but  gladiatorial  murder  games  on  a  great  scale  — 
human  imitations  of  bull  fights,  at  which  Satan  sits  as 
grand  alguazil  and  master  of  ceremonies  ?  It  is  only 
when  a  great  thought  incarnates  'itself  in  action,  desper 
ately  striving  to  find  utterance  even  in  sabre  clash  and 
gun  fire,  or  when  Truth  and  Freedom,  in  their  mistaken 
zeal  and  distrustful  of  their  own  powers,  put  on  battle 
harness,  that  I  can  feel  any  sympathy  with  merely  phys 
ical  daring.  The  brawny  butcher  work  of  men  whose 
wits,  like  those  of  Ajax,  lie  in  their  sinews,  and  who  are 
"yoked  like  draught  oxen  and  made  to  plough  up  the 
wars,"  is  no  realization  of  my  ideal  of  true  courage. 

Yet  I  am  not  conscious  of  having  lost  in  any  degree 
my  early  admiration  of  heroic  achievement.  The  feeling 
remains ;  but  it  has  found  new  and  better  objects.  I  have 
learned  to  appreciate  what  Milton  calls  the  martyr's  "  un- 
resistible  might  of  meekness"  —  the  calm,  uncomplaining 
endurance  of  those  who  can  bear  up  against  persecution 
uncheered  by  sympathy  or  applause,  and,  with  a  full  and 
keen  appreciation  of  the  value  of  all  which  they  are  called 
to  sacrifice,  confront  danger  and  death  in  unselfish  devo 
tion  to  duty.  Fox,  preaching  through  his  prison  grates 
or  rebuking  Oliver  Cromwell  in  the  midst  of  his  soldier 


THE    TRAINING.  429 

court ;  Henry  Vane  beneath  the  axe  of  the  headsman ; 
Mary  Dyer  on  the  scaffold  at  Boston ;  Luther  closing  his 
speech  at  Worms  with  the  sublime  emphasis  of  his  "  Here 
stand  I ;  I  cannot  otherwise  ;  God  help  me ;"  William  Penn 
defending  the  rights  of  Englishmen  from  the  bale  dock  of 
the  Fleet  prison  ;  Clarkson  climbing  the  decks  of  Liver 
pool  slave  ships ;  Howard  penetrating  to  infected  dungeons ; 
meek  Sisters  of  Charity  breathing  contagion  in  thronged 
hospitals,  —  all  these,  and  such  as  these,  now  help  me  to 
form  the  loftier  ideal  of  Christian  heroism. 

Blind  Milton  approaches  nearly  to  my  conception  of  a 
true  hero.  What  a  picture  have  we  of  that  sublime  old 
man,  as,  sick,  poor,  blind,  and  abandoned  of  friends, 
he  still  held  fast  his  heroic  integrity,  rebuking  with  his 
unbending  republicanism  the  treachery,  cowardice,  and 
servility  of  his  old  associates !  He  had  outlived  the  hopes 
and  beatific  visions  of  his  youth ;  he  had  seen  the  loud 
mouthed  advocates  of  liberty  throwing  down  a  nation's 
freedom  at  the  feet  of  the  shameless,  debauched,  and  per 
jured  Charles  II.,  crouching  to  the  harlot-thronged  court 
of  the  tyrant,  and  forswearing  at  once  their  religion  and 
their  republicanism.  The  executioner's  axe  had  been 
busy  among  his  friends.  Vane  and  Hampden  slept  in 
their  bloody  graves.  Cromwell's  ashes  had  been  dragged 
from  their  resting-place ;  for  even  in  death  the  effeminate 
monarch  hated  and  feared  the  conquerer  of  Naseby  and 


430  RECREATIONS    AND    MISCELLANIES. 

Marston  Moor.  He  was  left  alone,  in  age,  and  penury, 
and  blindness,  oppressed  with  the  knowledge  that  all 
which  his  free  soul  abhorred  had  returned  upon  his 
beloved  country.  Yet  the  spirit  of  the  stern  old  repub 
lican  remained  to  the  last  unbroken,  realizing  the  truth 
of  the  language  of  his  own  Samson  Agonistes :  — 


patience  is  the  exercise 


Of  saints ;  the  trial  of  their  fortitude 
Making  them  each  their  own  deliverer 
And  victor  over  all 
That  tyranny  or  fortune  can  inflict." 

The  curse  of  religious  and  political  apostasy  lay  heavy 
on  the  land.  Harlotry  and  atheism  sat  in  the  high  places ; 
and  the  "caresses  of  wantons  and  the  jests  of  buffoons 
regulated  the  measures  of  a  government  which  had  just 
ability  enough  to  deceive,  just  religion  enough  to  perse 
cute."  But,  while  Milton  mourned  over  this  disastrous 
change,  no  self-reproach  mingled  with  his  sorrow.  To 
the  last  he  had  striven  against  the  oppressor ;  and  when 
confined  to  his  narrow  alley,  a  prisoner  in  his  own  mean 
dwelling,  like  another  Prometheus  on  his  rock,  he  still 
turned  upon  him  an  eye  of  unsubdued  defiance.  Who, 
that  has  read  his  powerful  appeal  to  his  countrymen  when 
they  were  on  the  eve  of  welcoming  back  the  tyranny  and 
misrule  which,  at  the  expense  of  so  much  blood  and 


THE    TRAINING.  431 

treasure,  had  been  thrown  off,  can  ever  forget  it  ?  How 
nobly  does  Liberty  speak  through  him !  "  If,"  said  he, 
"ye  welcome  back  a  monarchy,  it  will  be  the  triumph  of 
all  tyrants  hereafter  over  any  people  who  shall  resist 
oppression  ;  and  their  song  shall  then  be  to  others,  '  How 
sped  the  rebellious  English?'  but  to  our  posterity,  '  How 
sped  the  rebels,  your  fathers  ? ' "  How  solemn  and  awful 
is  his  closing  paragraph!  "What  I  have  spoken  is  the 
language  of  that  which  is  not  called  amiss  '  the  good  old 
cause.'  If  it  seem  strange  to  any,  it  will  not,  I  hope, 
seem  more  strange  than  convincing  to  backsliders.  This 
much  I  should  have  said  though  I  were  sure  I  should 
have  spoken  only  to  trees  and  stones,  and  had  none  to 
cry  to  but  with  the  prophet,  '  0  earth,  earth,  earth  ! '  to 
tell  the  very  soil  itself  what  its  perverse  inhabitants  are 
deaf  to ;  nay,  though  what  I  have  spoken  should  prove 
(which  Thou  suffer  not,  who  didst  make  mankind  free : 
nor  Thou  next,  who  didst  redeem  us  from  being  servants 
of  sin)  to  be  the  last  words  of  our  expiring  liberties." 


I/7&W73C 


~I 


LOAN  DEPT 


n     General  Library 
Diversity  of  Calif orn,'; 
Berkeley 


^V£^»^V3^^^ 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


